Locational Stability Factors in the Men's Apparel Industry in the Southeast

LOCATIONAL STABILITY FACTORS IN THE MEN'S APPAREL INDUSTRY IN THE SOUTHEAST Merle C. Prunty and Carl F. Ojala" In 1920, almost 80 percent of all men's garment production in the nation, and about 70 percent of the workers in that industry, were concentrated in nine cities in the northeastern quarter of the United States. (1) The state of New York alone contained some 2,537 men's apparel manufacturing establishments, or approximately half of the plants in the nation, and most of these were concentrated in New York City. (2) Fifty years ago, men's apparel manufacturing was insignificant among Southern industrial endeavors; Georgia, for example, contained less than one percent of all plants and all employees involved in the industry nationally. (3) Since 1920, the industry has experienced a series of plant migrations to Southern areas which, coupled with the establishment of new firms of Southern origin, has resulted in reconcentration of the industry primarily in the South. Relocation and growth in the South has proceeded rapidly, especially since World War II, and Northeastern states (particularly New York) have decreased in both absolute and relative importance within the industry. Since 1960 it has, therefore, been generally recognized that the majority of the employment and most of the value added in men's apparel manufacture in the United States has been associated with plants located in the South. (4) The majority of employment in the industry occurs in the Southeast, i.e., south of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi, excluding Florida (Figure 1). Essentially, all studies that have examined the locational traits of the men's apparel industry in recent decades have concluded that labor cost has been, overwhelmingly, the cardinal locational force in the industry . (5) The authors also accept labor cost advantages in the South as a principal element in migration of many men's apparel plants into the Southeast, and in the rise of plants developed from regionally indigenous capital. It is, however, a crudely related view of the industry that generated the present analysis: the view of the industry as locationally unstable, populated by "fly-by-night" operatives who have exploited communities and employees by occupying community-supplied facilities only as long as free sites or local tax advantages or no local labor competition lasted—and who then moved on to another community that afforded a parallel set of advantages for exploitation. This view, quite widely held since World War II, has tended to represent the apparel •Dr. Prunty is Alumni Foundation Professor of geography at the University of Georgia, Athens; Dr. Ojala is assistant professor of geography at Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti. This paper was accepted for publication in June 1974. Vol. XIV, No. 2 107 industry as an undesirable element in the economic fabric of any Southern area. It has plagued firms that have specialized in industrial location services, local chamber of commerce and community officials and, particularly , most of the managerial cadre within the industry itself. Figure 1 Both authors are aware of instances in the past in which fly-by-night plant operators did exactly what they have been charged with doing. These instances consist of a scattering of cases observed in Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, and the Carolinas. AU were observed during the 1950's but not since then; the authors believe the fly-by-night label has had no validity in recent years. It is here postulated that the men's apparel industry has developed substantial locational stability because of distinctive locational advantages which the Southeast affords it, and that these same advantages should accrue to the industry for the foreseeable future. The postulate involved examination of 1) characteristic plant locations to assess relative cost advantages, 2) raw materials assemblage, linkage, and transport costs, 3) industrial inertia effects, and 4) the effects of Federal regulations. Examinations of these facets should demonstrate that if standardized wage rates should come about, as a consequence of nationwide unionization of the industry, the industry would remain predominantly in the South. As a medium scale areal base for this study, industry in north Georgia was examined where 84 plants were distributed through 18 108 Southeastern Geographer counties in 1969 (Figure 2...