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Industrial Firm Relocation: The Case Of Gebze Organized Industrial Zone

It is an indisputable fact that cities have experienced a process of economic and spatial
restructuring accompanied by the globalization of economy throughout the world since the
1980s. In line with this process, industrial sector has also witnessed economic and social
restructuring process. Research in regional planning marks this process as a consequence
of emerging industrial dynamics such as new technologies, new markets, and lower labor
costs under new spatial divisions of labor. Such industrial dynamics brought spatial
restructuring as well. Therefore, industrial firms are willing to relocate production
activities to the new areas where they maintain the spatial margins of profitability. In this
respect, today, one of the main discussion arenas of industrial geography is to explain the
reasons of the industrial relocation.
Within this context, this thesis focuses on the main push and pull factors that underlie the
relocation process of industrial activities towards outside of Istanbul as well as beyond the
provincial boundaries. In order to show this, a case study was conducted in Gebze
Organized Industrial Zone (GOIZ) because 1/100.000 scale Environmental Management
Plan of Istanbul has determined GOIZ as the potential area where the firms can relocate.
The case study covered 37 firms which constitute the total number of firms relocated from
Istanbul. Results of the thesis show that traditional location factors such as transport, site
and premises are the most important factors that motivate firms to relocate from Istanbul
to the GOIZ. However, contemporary factors are not much explanatory in case of the
GOIZ.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:METU/oai:etd.lib.metu.edu.tr:http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/3/12611051/index.pdf
Date01 September 2009
CreatorsBarin, Elcin
ContributorsTurel, Ali
PublisherMETU
Source SetsMiddle East Technical Univ.
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeM.S. Thesis
Formattext/pdf
RightsAccess forbidden for 1 year

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