Factors affecting industrial location and weber's theory
Answers
(i) Primary causes of regional distribution of industry (regional factors)
(ii) Secondary causes (agglomerative and deglomerative factors) that are responsible for redistribution of industry.
(i) Primary Causes (Regional Factors)
According to Weber, transport costs and labour costs are the two regional factors on which his pure theory is based. Assuming that there are no other factors that influence the distribution of industry, except transportation costs. Then it is clear that the location of industry will be pulled to those locations which have the lowest transportation costs. The key factors that determine transportation costs are
(i) the weight to be transported and
(ii) the distance to be covered.
Weber lists some more factors which influence the transportation costs such as – (a) the type of transportation system and the extent of its use, (b) the nature of the region and kinds of roads, (c) the nature of goods themselves, i.e., the qualities which, besides weight, determine the facility of transportation.
However, the location of the place of production must be determined in relation to the place of consumption and to the most advantageously located material deposits.
Industrial locations are complex in nature. These are influenced by the availability of many factors. Some of them are: raw material, land, water, labor, capital, power, transport, and market. For ease of convenience, we can classify the location factors into two: geographical factors and non-geographical factors.
Alfred Weber formulated a theory of industrial location in which an industry is located where the transportation costs of raw materials and final product is a minimum. He singled out two special cases. In one the weight of the final product is less than the weight of the raw material going into making the product.