Publication Date
1997
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to provide a means of assessing and ranking the suitability of potential industrial sites that a particular industrial firm is considering for development. The assessment is performed as an inventory that creates a preliminary ranking of the potential sites based on the number and degree of characteristics that are favorable to the particular firm, for the purpose of establishing a systematic means of selecting a site. This inventory method has no geographical bounds in that it is suitable for use in the entire country. This method is also preliminary in nature in that the final decision should not be based solely on a high ranking assessment, but on final costs involved in using a potential site. These costs associated with development of a site will be examined not as a further ranking tool, but as a means of presenting options for assistance from the communities. This method of assessing potential sites not only can be utilized by a company seeking a new location, but also by a municipality or region that has been approached by a firm seeking a new site as a tool to match the firm's need to available sites.
The inventory comprises three steps. First, the industrial firm must determine factors that they feel are absolutely necessary for the use of a site. Second, the firm must give weight to the major categories of characteristics used by the inventory as a means of indicating features that are more important for one site to have than others. Finally, the inventory of characteristics is completed for each site and a value determined for each site so that they can be compared.
Pages
Pages 1-33
Included in
Economic Policy Commons, Growth and Development Commons, Policy Design, Analysis, and Evaluation Commons, Regional Economics Commons, Urban, Community and Regional Planning Commons, Urban Studies and Planning Commons
Comments
The Center for Economic Development at the University of Massachusetts, in Amherst, is part of the Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning Department, and is funded by the Economic Development Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce, and the University of Massachusetts.