Brownfield
A site of abandoned factories. Described as deteriorating buildings surrounded by weeds, marked by broken or boarded-up windows, and rusting metal.
Break-Of-Bulk Point
A location where cargo transfer is possible from one mode of transportation to another.
Bulk-Gaining Industry
An industry which is also knows as weight-gaining, market-oriented, or market-dependent. These materials become bulkier as processing occurs.
Bulk-Reducing Industry
These types of industry are also knows as weight-losing, raw material-oriented, or raw-material-dependent industry. These types of materials lose bulk during the process of processing.
Formal Sector
This is the portion of the economy that is monitored by the government, so people in it follow regulations and pay taxes.
Cottage Industry
Small home based businesses that make goods
Fordist/fordism
A system of mass-production that uses assembly lines to allow companies to rapidly produce more standardized products with less-skilled workers than ever before.
Labor-Intensive Industry
An industry for which labor costs comprise a high percentage of total expenses.
Informal Sector
This is the portion of the economy that is not monitored by the government.
Maquiladora
Special manufacturing zones or export-processing cities that exist throughout Northern Mexico. (In other words: Factories built by US companies in Mexico near the US border to take advantage of much lower labor costs in Mexico.)
New International Division of Labor
A changed system of employment in the various economic sectors throughout the world. (Googles definition?: Transfer of some types of jobs, especially those requiring low-paid, less-skilled workers, from more developed to less developed countries.)
Outsourcing
Contracting work to noncompany employees or other companies
Post Fordist Production
Adoption by companies of flexible work rules, such as the allocation of workers to teams that perform a variety of tasks. (In other words: the world-economy now; a more flexible set of production practices in which the component of goods are made in different places around the globe and then brought together is needed to meet market demand-brings places closer together in time and space (ex: stock markets) ) (People working more jobs).
Front Office
To signal wealth, a corporation might locate its main office for its top executives on the expensive upper floors of a skyscraper in a large city. These are designed to impress clients. (in other words, the main administrative office of a business or other organization)
Right-To-Work States
A state that has passed a law preventing a union and company from negotiating a contract that requires workers to join a union as a condition of employment.
Site Factors
A place's physical features related to the costs of business production, such as land, labor, and capital.
Situation Factors
The features of a location's surrounding area, especially as related to the cost of transporting raw materials and finished goods.
Textiles
A type of cloth or woven fabric. (In other words: a type of hand-produced or machine-produced fabric (like clothes). )(Reiterated AGAIN: a fabric made by weaving, used in making clothing)
Back Offices
The company might decide to locate the rest of its employees in less expensive office spaces. (In other words, An office or center in which the administrative work of a business is carried out, as opposed to its dealings with customers.)
Anthropocentric
Human Centered; in sustainable development, this refers to ideas that focus solely on the needs of people without considering the creatures with whom we share the planet or the ecosystems upon which we depend.
Agglomeration
Grouping together of many firms from the same industry in a single area for collective or cooperative use of infrastructure and sharing of labor resources
Brick-And-Mortar Business
Traditional businesses with actual stores in which trade or retail sales occur; it does not exist solely on the Internet
Conglomerate corporation
A firm that is comprised of many smaller firms that serve different functions
Commodity Theory
deals with the psychological effects of scarcity. According to the theory, scarcity enhances the value (or desirability) of anything that can be possessed, is useful to its possessor, and is transferable from one person to another.
Comparative advantage
the ability of an individual, firm, or country to produce a good or service at a lower opportunity cost than other producers.
Complementary advantage/good
When two regions specifically satisfy each other's needs through the exchange of raw materials and or finished goods. Is a good whose use is related to the use of an associated or paired good.
Complex commodity chains
is a process used by firms to gather resources, transform them into goods or commodities, and finally, distribute them to consumers.
Deindustrialization
Loss of industrial activity in a region.
Deglomeration
the dispersal of an industry that formerly existed in an established agglomeration.
E-commerce
Web (Internet) based economic activities
Ecotourism
a form of tourism based on the enjoyment of scenic areas or natural wonders that aims to provide an experience of nature or culture in an environmentally sustainable way.
Footloose firms
Manufacturing activities in which the cost of transporting both raw materials and finished product is not important for determining the location of the firm.
Growth poles
economic development, or growth, is not uniform over an entire region, but instead takes place around a specific pole.
Industrial Revolution
The rapid economic and social changes in manufacturing that resulted after the introduction of the factory system to the textile industry in England at the end of the 1700s.
Industrialization
the process of industrial development in which countries evolve economically from producing basic, primary goods to using modern factories for mass-producing goods. At the highest levels of development, national economies are geared mainly toward the delivery of services and the exchange of information.
Just-in-time delivery
Method of inventory management made possible by efficient transportation and communication system, whereby companies keep on hand just what they need for near-term production, planning that what they need for longer-term production will arrive when needed.
Least-Cost Theory
A concept developed by Alfred Weber to describe the optimal location of a manufacturing establishment in relation to the costs of transport and labor and the relative advantages of agglomeration or deglomeration.
Manufacturing region
A region in which manufacturing activities have clustered together
Offshore financial center
Areas that have been specially designed to promote business transactions and thus have become centers for banking and finance.
Post-Industrial Economy
An economy that de-emphasizes industry, preferring services instead.
Sustainable development
the idea that people living today should be able to meet their needs without prohibiting the ability of future generations to do the same
High Technology Industries (Technopole)
areas devoted to research, development, and sale of high technology products; the networking and synergistic advantages of concentrating in these areas (with good universities and infrastructure) facilitate modern technological innovation (e.g., Silicon Valley, Boston).