THE INTRAMETROPOLITAN LOCATION OF HIGH-ORDER SERVICES - PATTERNS, FACTORS AND MOBILITY IN MONTREAL

The issue of the interurban location of high order service activities (i.e., producer services and finance, insurance and real estate servic es) was one of the major areas investigated by service industries rese archers during the 1980s; the spatial concentration of high order serv ices in a relatively small number of large metropolitan areas is now a well documented fact. In the 1990s, researchers are increasingly turn ing their focus on the intrametropolitan location of these activities. In particular, certain studies have shown that high order services ha ve begun to leave their ''natural habitar''-the CBD-in order to locate in suburban office agglomerations. This paper explores the intrametro politan location issue in the specific context of the Montreal Census Metropolitan Area (CMA), employing data derived from a detailed survey of 324 high order service establishments. We first examine patterns o f intrametropolitan mobility, in terms of both establishments and empl oyment; spatial stability, rather than decentralization, is evident. N ext, we explore locational factors from the viewpoint of site attribut es. Accessibility to the establishment for clients and land costs or r ental prices emerge as the major factors. Finally, we conduct a logist ic regression analysis in order to identify the principal characterist ics of high order service establishments that may be used to explain t heir location within the Montreal CMA. The majority of the characteris tics found to be statistically significant involve market linkages to clients, either in terms of the geographic distribution of clients or the types of clients served.