奈良教育大学学術リポジトリNEAR
アメリカ合衆国太平洋岸地域の工業地誌研究
著者 菊地 一郎
雑誌名 奈良教育大学紀要. 人文・社会科学
巻 23
号 1
ページ 95‑113
発行年 1974‑11‑15
その他のタイトル A STUDY ON REGIONAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDUSTRIES IN
THE PACIFIC COAST REGION OF THE UNITED STATES
URL http://hdl.handle.net/10105/2638
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A STUDY ON REGIONAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDUSTRIES IN THE PACIFIC COAST REGION OF THE UNITED STATES
ICHIRO KIKUCHI
Department of Geography, Nara University of Education, Nara, Japan.
(Received April 40, 1974)
The writer had received an order to take an official trip as an overseas researcher of Ministry of Education and studied in Department of Geography, University of Washigton at Seattle from 1971 to 1972. Then the writer completed a paper on "THE REGIONAL
STRUCTURE OF THE KNITTING INDUSTRY-THE KINKI REGION OF JAPAN
AND ATLANTIC COAST REGION OF THE UNITED STATES-and gathered some
data on regional geography of industries in the Pacific coast area which constitutes California, Oregon and Washington. Recently the writer has arranged and analyzed the data, and written this paper.
Industrial clusters lie in San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco which are the three main metropolitan areas in California. Los Angeles-Long Beach SMSA has four times as much as San Francisco and fifteen times as much as San Diego in the value
added by manufacture. Between San Francisco and Los Angeles, there is a great
contrast, judged as port cites. Los Angeles is separated from coarst and its port by a belt of suburban development, interspersed with oil refineries linked to one another via barge canals in the Long Beach area. There is little association in Los Angeles between manufactures and the port which is artificial, resulting from construction of a long breakwater and was built to meet the need of a city. Los Angels' factories therefore are inland, and nourished by rail and truck transport. Although food processing was the primary activity at first in both Los Angeles and San Francisco, aircraft production began during World War II and in a few years became the largest basic manufacturing industry in Los Angeles as well as in San Diego. On the other hand, San Francisco's strategic location on one of the best natural harbors on the Pacific coast of North America, has contributed to the Bay Area's phenomenal growth as one of important factors. The industries of the Bay Area are very varied and increasing diversification. They include shipbuilding and marine engineering, as might be expected in a port that handles a third of the waterborne commerce of the United States Pacific coast. They also include some of the most sophisticated branches of industry in the style of the 1960's-electronics, transport equipment and the research plants. California offers these industries the benefit proximity to first-class university centers, a factor which is proving a very powerful attraction to the location of modern industy.
Most industries of the North-west which is defined here as Washington and Oregon,
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are found in Puget Sound Lowland-Willamette Valley with intensive clustering in the metropolitan areas of Seattle and Portland. The principal manufacturing industries of the region have ever been the lumber industry and food processing, but rapid growth and diversification have characterized the manufacturing development during the past two decades. In Seattle's manufacturing, aircraft fabricators have played the dominant role since World War I. The Boeing company's giant plants are located in the southern part of Seattle and the environs. Seattle has no major producer other than Boeing, and aircraft fabrication and assembly is relatively more important here than in Los Angeles. Food processing comprises the second type manufacturing in Seattle. Portland has not such a dominating type as Seattle's aircraft industry. Portland functions as an assembly and processing point for natural resources moving from the surrounding territory with the fertile Willamett Valley on the flank and the inland area at the back through the Columbia Gorge. Food processing, the manufacturings of lumber, pulp and paper are the basic industries which are directly related to the raw material supplies. Although the North-west is rich in minerals such as silver, lead, or copper, it has little coal and imports petroleum, so that industries depend heavily on water power, the region's main industrial asset. The aluminium smelting industry began at Vancouver in 1940, favored by available low-cost electricity, and rapidly expanded in the lower Columbia during
World War II.
