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Manufacturing land productivity and land-use forecasting : as experienced by the petroleum refining industry of B.C.'s lower mainland

University of British Columbia

Improved techniques for forecasting land needs for urban development are required with continuing population and economic growth for the provision of adequate services at reasonable cost. Current local forecasting techniques exclude the direct measurement of land used in industrial activities and its correlation with industrial production. With continuing technological improvements in industrial processes it is likely that the relation between land and output will vary and particularly in the manufacturing industries. A review of the Petroleum Refining Industry's experience by a direct mailed questionnaire to all Lower Mainland of B.C. refiners indicated a declining importance of land in relation to output over the last two decades. Trends in refinery output, employment, and land in active use, show an increasing productivity of both land and labor. The increase in productivity of manufacturing land exceeded that of labor over the past twenty years in this industry group. A conceptual comparison was made between two types of forecast where, in one, the factor of increasing output per unit of land was excluded. The comparison was inexact since somewhat different industries were compared. However, it appeared that over a twenty-year period the exclusion of the productivity of land factor in the example could lead to significantly different results. The difference between the techniques was an indicated requirement of 1200 acres versus 600 acres in total land needed up to 1980 by the industry group. Before the factor of land productivity in manufacturing and other industries can be adequately considered changes are required in the methods of collecting statistics. These changes would enable a correlation between output, employment, population, and land within the urban area.

Text

2011-12-02

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/39447

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University of British Columbia

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