Critically examine the value of classical location theory (Weber) when applied to modern manufacturing industry.

        Anyhow, Weber’s model was mostly based upon transport costs, but however it did also take into account labour costs and agglomeration economics (the savings that could be made through sharing). He predicted that industries which experienced significant weight loss during manufacturing, such as the coal and steel industries, would locate as close as they could to the source of the raw material, thus saving money on the transport costs. On the other hand, industries that experienced weight gain during processing, such as brewing, would locate much closer to their market, because of the addition of the ubiquitous raw material of water during processing. However, it was understood that the optimum location may shift if savings from labour costs or agglomeration outweigh the increased transport costs of moving.

        In fact, more specifically, changes in location factors can lead to three areas of change within an industry, according to Weber. These are either a spatial or vertical splitting of production and distribution, a diversification within the plant of various processes or the division of labour between industries. Location may affect the costs of an industry in securing a location, for example, the cost of real estate and obtaining raw and auxiliary materials.  General regional factors may also affect the costs of manufacturing, for example, the labour costs and transport costs involved when shipping products to their consumers.

        Weber’s least cost location theory has its merit. Many multi-national corporations seek vast supplies of cheap labour from wherever they can get it; however, this is to include Europe as well as in the developing areas of the world. For example, the car manufacturing plants at Zaragoza and Valencia in Southern Spain. Also certain industries such as iron and steel works and commonly are found in coastal locations, like at Llanwern-Port Talbot in Wales, and are subsequently in the least cost locations. The agglomeration of high-tech industries on sites such as the Cambridge Science Park helps to share new developments and technologies, which is thus able to illustrate Weber’s principle of agglomeration. The increasing global importance of multi-national corporations, with their huge financial and human resources, is creating a type of rational being, intent on the maximisation of profits and with the necessary information and backing to implement research findings.

        Nevertheless, geographers have been able to pinpoint three specific shortcomings about Weber’s model. Firstly, they simply believe that industrialists are not exactly rational, secondly, that there can be only be one least cost location although many of the other profitable locations are still seized on, especially by many industrial rivals, and thirdly, it is believed that Weber over-emphasised the importance of transport costs.

        The issue of industrial location is increasingly relevant to today’s global markets and multi-national corporations. Focusing only on the mechanics of the Weber model however could justify greater transport distances for cheap labour and those unexploited raw materials. When resources are exhausting and worker’s protest, industries might see fit to move to different countries. As a sociologist who resisted the ideology of the Fascist movement he was part of for a good portion of his life, Alfred Weber might today have expanded his discussion of the potential negative social, cultural and historical consequences of the underlying issue of industrial location.