Location and Expansion of Help Supply Services in the U.S. South, 1988-1999

While there is a rich literature on the unprecedented growth of help supply services, the spatial implications of the growth have not been adequately explored. This research fills some gaps by studying the U.S. South, the fastest-growing and most specialized region in help supply services. Using employment data at the county level, it is found that the help supply services in the South were concentrated in metropolitan areas with a population of 250,000 or more, and in central counties of metropolitan areas. However, there is relative decentralization downward and outward as help supply services expanded both hierarchically from large-and-medium metropolitan areas to small metropolitan areas and nonmetropolitan areas and horizontally from central counties to sub-urban counties and nonmetropolitan counties.