Subsidiary Centers in the Southeastern United States: The Role of the Urban Hierarchy

Southeastern Geographer Vol. 27, No. 1, May 1987, pp. 48-63 SUBSIDIARY CENTERS IN THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES: THE ROLE OF THE URBAN HIERARCHY James O. Wheeler Interest in cities as management or command and control centers goes back many years. In Gottmann's now classic Megalopolis, he referred to "centers of decision-making," noting the preeminent role of New York city in particular and the dominance of Megalopolis in general . (J) Goodwin mapped the number of companies by state whose headquarters office was located in six major U.S. cities and classified 31 management centers into one of three major categories: quaternary, tertiary, and secondary. (2) In one of the most comprehensive treatments ofheadquarters location viewed within the system ofcities, Pred provided both a conceptual model and empirical results of jobs controlled by multilocational business organizations. (3) He concluded that "the total volume of non-local intraorganizational linkages created . . . by multilocational business organizations based in the selected metropolitan complexes is considerable despite the great distances separating those complexes from the remainder of the system." (4) Other studies of headquarters location have focused on the relatively high level of stability of these locations over time. Borchert compared headquarters location among the largest 500 industrial corporations in 1920 and 1971, finding that "a half century later the pattern was similar ..." to the earlier pattern. (5) Only modest déconcentration had occurred. Semple, using an entropy measure for corporate headquarters locations for 1956 and 1971, found that "trends indicate ... a greater geographic dispersion of corporate control is taking place," although certain exceptions were noted. (6) Later Semple and Phipps and Semple put forth a conceptual model that suggests a growing concentration of corporate headquarters from 1850 to 1950 and a subsequent déconcentration. (7) Wheeler, using U.S. data for 1960, 1970, and 1980 for corporate headquarters, corroborated the finding of the Semple and Phipps study that corporate headquarters are dispersing nationally with both a lead and lag effect with population. (S) In a more detailed study, Dr. Wheeler is the Merle Prunty, Jr. , Professor of Geography at the University of Georgia in Athens, GA 30602. Vol. XXVII, No. 1 49 Wheeler and Brown found that the U.S. South experienced a growth in relative corporate influence from 1960 to 1980, a conclusion also consistent with the Semple-Phipps model. (9) British geographers have been concerned with foreign direct investment and external ownership and control from an industrial point of view, especially as it focuses on job loss, though few such studies have focused on the United States (JO). Probably the most indepth analysis of external control and its impact on a regional economy is Watts' study of the United Kingdom. (JJ) Here the concern is with identifying corporate actors and decision makers, understanding their strategic investment decision, and comprehending the impact of these decisions on the regional economy. Another recent study seeking to understand the massive job losses in manufacturing in Britain is by Massey and Meegan. (12). Thus, whereas the thrust of American studies of external ownership and control has been on understanding the role and extent of decision making and how it is changing, the British studies have tended to seek an explanation of how corporate location strategy affects job losses in the local and regional economy. Hanson, drawing upon a classification of the 140 largest U.S. metropolitan areas by Noyelle and Stanback, divided metropolitan areas into two broad groups: (1) command and control centers and (2) subordinate centers. (J3) Hanson noted the "increasing polarization" between these two types of centers, with the command and control centers having "a high degree of economic autonomy" and being "in the mainstream of urban economic development." (14) In contrast, the subordinate centers "lack readily adaptable labor forces or a sufficient contingent of professionally and technically trained workers"; likewise, these centers tend to have industrial units that "have little autonomy" and "have much less stability in the face of major changes in markets and technologies ." (J5) Command and control centers may be either diversified service centers (at the national, regional, or subregional level) or specialized service centers (functional, government-education, or educationmanufacturing centers), while subordinate centers are either consumer-oriented centers or...