Manufacturing Diffusion as a Growth Point Process in the Southeast

MANUFACTURING DIFFUSION AS A GROWTH POINT PROCESS IN THE SOUTHEAST William A. Rabiega and Roland G. Wood" INTRODUCTION. Extensive manufacturing development in the southeastern United States is generally accepted to have taken place in this century. Indeed, study of the relocation of the textile industry and its subsequent expansion in the Appalachian Piedmont has almost become hackneyed through its wide use to illustrate (1) the effects of manufacturing introduced into a relatively underdeveloped and agrarian region and (2) the role of labor costs in attracting specific types of manufacturing . An introduction of industry into selected centers, as in the 19201940 relocation of textile plants from New England to the Southeast, but by government rather than private entrepreneurs, would be an initial step in regional economic development following the classic growth point model. The model outlines a sequence of events which ultimately leads to dispersion of manufacturing and wealth. According to the theory a "motor industry," i.e., an industry which attracts extraregional income, locates at a growth point. Workers respond to the high wages offered by this industry by commuting to it from the surrounding area. Their wages are then spent at their places of residence, creating a multiplier and allowing some accumulation of capital. This capital is eventually used to establish new industry away from the original growth point, which has by now diversified its workforce into a number of tertiary activities, thereby receiving the designation of growth pole. The outlying center with new manufacturing becomes a growth point, and the process continues until manufacturing employment has been evenly spread over the region. There is considerable controversy over whether this process takes place in fact, and hence, if an economic development policy following growth point principles is wise. (1) Thus, it is germane to review industrialization in the Southeast with regard to how well it follows classical growth point theory. It might be hypothesized that manufacturing activity did begin as highly dispersed, owing to the region's generally low proportion of employment and low technological level, then became more concentrated with the introductions of industry (primarily textiles in the case of the Southeast), and still later became less concentrated as economic activity spread from growth poles. This sequence would support the growth point hypothesis. Alternatively, if the process ended with concentration of manufacturing in the original centers of industrial introduction, approximating a "back- *Dr. Rabiega is assistant professor of geography at The Florida State University. Dr. Wood is head of the cartographic section of the World Bank. This paper was accepted for publication in June 1974. Vol. XIV, No. 2 85 wash" or "polarization" effect, the case against a regional economicdevelopment policy following growth point principles would be strengthened . (2) THE PRORLEM. The basic problem of this investigation was to establish whether industrial development in the Southeast since 1920 has followed growth point processes, or whether it has continued to concentrate in original centers of introduction. The analysis employed county level data in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina for the census years 1920 through 1970, inclusive. The general concentration pattern was analyzed for each ten year period. CLASSICAL GROWTH POINT THEORY AS A DIFFUSION PROCESS . Analysis of concentration patterns is appropriate to the problem because the classic growth point model has been increasingly noted to represent a diffusion process. (3) In particular, the diffusion is of the hierarchical, expansion type. The growth point process is implicitly hierarchical in that the spread of economic activity can be viewed as a "trickling down" effect through a hierarchy in which the apex is the initial introduction point for manufacturing. It is an expansion diffusion situation in that the relative dominance of initial centers should decrease as dispersion of industry takes place, but there should never be total relocation of manufacturing from introduction points. Whether the scale is micro, meso, or macro is immaterial to the type of analysis summarized here. Issues concerning scale pertain to explicit patterns of diffusion of specific innovations. This analysis encompassing four states was at a macro scale. However, because all manufacturing was included rather than a single category or a new process within a single economic activity, only the most general attributes of the model...