Corporate Activities and the Urban Hierarchy in Georgia

Southeastern Geographer Vol. 28, No. 2, November 1988, pp. 97-109 CORPORATE ACTIVITIES AND THE URBAN HIERARCHY IN GEORGIA James O. Wheeler It is generally recognized that large corporations have played a major role in the evolution of the U.S. urban system and that only a few metropolitan areas act as command and control centers. (J) A number of recent studies have pointed to the role of contemporary corporations in the changing economies of metropolitan areas. (2) Among the best known perhaps are studies by Noyelle and Stanback suggesting a strong functional and spatial association between corporate concentrations in metropolitan centers and the economic viability of those centers. (3) Wheeler demonstrated a positive relationship for the 38 largest metropolitan areas in the United States between the concentration of major corporate headquarters and employment growth in the service sector. (4) The new emphasis on the increasing number of jobs in the service sector, combined with the slow growth or decline in manufacturing, is creating a major transformation in metropolitan economies. (5) The traditional interpretation of economic-base theory is being reassessed, and the explanatory value of urban change offered by central-place theory seems insufficient in light ofthe massive structural and regional shifts in the U.S. metropolitan economy. (6) At its core, central-place theory is based on interrelationships between a center's population size, its location or spacing with respect to other centers, and the assortment of tertiary activities found in it. (7) These relationships have been explored extensively, especially during the 1960s, and they now form a part of the conventional wisdom in urban geography. (8) Recent updates of research on central-place theory emphasize modifications of travel and consumer preference, but the classical interrelationships remain the heart of the theory. (9) A basic assumption of central-place theory is that tertiary activities serve a defined local market, with larger centers having larger local markets. Economic-base theory, not confined to the tertiary sector but treating Dr. Wheeler is the Merle Prunty, Jr., Professor of Geography at the University of Georgia in Athens, GA 30602. 98Southeastern Geographer the entire range of economic activities, attempts to account for urban growth by dividing employment into basic and nonbasic categories. (10) Nonbasic jobs exist to serve the local market, while basic jobs rely upon nonlocal markets. Manufacturing jobs traditionally have been viewed as basic, as industrial goods are largely exported out of the center in which they were produced, bringing dollar inflow. Thus, according to economic -base theory, the growth, and hence population size, of a center depends on the number of jobs in the basic sector. Ullman and Dacey, for example, developed an empirical method to measure the basic employment of an urban center by calculating the minimum employment for each city-size category. (Ji) Economic-base studies were especially popular during the 1950s and early 1960s. Both central-place theory and economic-base theory attempt to associate different kinds ofeconomic activities with urban centers of varying sizes. Both theories are founded on the assumption that there exists a measurable relationship between population size and the nature of economic units. Central-place theory associates the nature oftertiary activities with the size of the local markets, whereas economic-base theory finds the association between population size and growth to be an interplay between local and export markets. This paper takes a different approach by arguing that the urban hierarchy in Georgia displays a corporate composition that parallels the differential impact of cities reorienting themselves to the new service economy. The kinds of corporations headquartered in a center reflect the size of the center and therefore the degree to which the center participates in the new service economy. This corporate approach makes no explicit assumptions regarding the local or nonlocal nature of markets, in contrast to central-place or economic-base theory. Rather, the emphasis is on the degree to which different size centers are able to act as control or management points for the various sectors of the economy, recognizing that this control is both local and external. As the world system has become increasingly complex and interdependent, it is primarily the large metropolitan areas—acting as corporate management centers...