Logistics Services: Global Functions and Global Cities

The services that organise global and regional trade are supplied by multi-locational, multi-functional, and information-intensive firms. However, in much urban and regional research, these firms are still seen as part of the transportation task, so their urban and regional impacts are expected to be expressed in concentrations of transportation infrastructure. This paper shows that there has been considerable functional and structural change within these services. In effect, they act like producer services and, for many, head offices and regional offices are in global cities, not all of which are major transportation centres. Using data on the location of the head and regional offices of a sample of the largest of these firms, this research shows that high-ranked global cities, rather than large transportation centres, are a common office location although some firms operate from small cities. When these firms have regional offices overseas, all favour global cities. These results provide some insight on the links between these cities and the service tasks performed by service firms. They also provide grounds to develop a potentially rich research agenda based on analyses of the activities of these understudied firms.