Open Collections

Analysis of manufacturing location in Greater Vancouver

University of British Columbia

This thesis represents an empirical analysis of manufacturing location in Greater Vancouver based primarily upon the analysis of the returns to a location survey questionnaire mailed to manufacturing plants in Greater Vancouver employing over fifteen employees. In this questionnaire respondents are asked to assess the importance of a set of location factors in their regional locational decision. The quantitative techniques employed to analyze these returns seek to examine the similarity and difference in patterns of response among various industry types and size classes of respondents. The returns to this questionnaire are shown to possess severe limitations with regard to scope of coverage and format of the questionnaire itself in view of their utility as a data base for a study of metropolitan manufacturing location. Suggestions are therefore made with regard to how these limitations could have been overcome to furnish data of greater utility. This thesis, as a reflection of the limitations in its primary empirical data base, does not yield a great number of generally applicable findings. The findings however which do emerge are related to statements in the voluminous body of industrial location literature. The relevance of these findings to the planner concerned with the development of policy to regulate and accommodate manufacturing activity within Greater Vancouver is also discussed. The methodology employed and supplementary approaches suggested within this thesis would be applicable to more comprehensive metropolitan industrial location questionnaire returns. Suggestions with regard to improvements in questionnaire format are of general applicability and could contribute substantially to improving the quality of industrial location surveys in general, particularly at the metropolitan level of analysis. Such improvements could also lead to the gradual construction of industrial location theory of greater empirical utility.

Text

2011-03-30

For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/33094

Planning

University of British Columbia

Graduate