Southern Services in the Late Twentieth Century

The vast majority of Southerners, like those in the rest of the United States, are employed in services of various sorts. This paper reviews definitions of "services" and the forces underlying their growth. Second, it examines the geography of the service economy. Third, it focuses on the spatial structure of private (non-government) southern service industries and their growth patterns between 1964 and 1994. Southern services tend to agglomerate in large metropolitan areas, particularly Washington, DC, Atlanta, and southern Florida; rural areas exhibited relatively low levels of employment. The most rapid growth rates, however, largely were on the periphery of, but not within, metropolitan areas.