Urban decentralization as reflected by the location patterns of law firm offices in the Raleigh metropolitan area / by Bruce Calvin Payne.
| Author/creator | Payne, Bruce Calvin author. |
| Other author | Shea, Philip, degree supervisor. |
| Other author | East Carolina University. Department of Geography and Planning. |
| Format | Theses and dissertations |
| Production | 1991. |
| Description | [ix], 165 leaves : illustrations, folded maps ; 28 cm |
| Supplemental Content | Access via ScholarShip |
| Subjects |
| Summary | The growth of urban areas has accelerated at a phenomenal rate during the second half of the twentieth century. The means by which traditional and new urban centers are identified is primarily a measure of the amount of office space that exists within the subject area. Because of the traditional affiliation of law offices with urban centers, the migration of urban centers to suburban areas can be analyzed and is likely to be partially explained by the factors behind the suburban migration of law firms. There were two specific purposes behind this research. First, it related selected theories of location and urban spatial arrangement to the development patterns of an existing metropolitan area. This was done to examine the relevance of existing urban theory to the study of office location. Second, it tested for significant differences between the attitudes of downtown and suburban law firms as they pertained to identified factors of office location; and also tested for significant relationships between the types of law practiced by law firms and their location. The methods used in analysis of the data were Student's t - distribution and chi square distribution. The study area was the city of Raleigh, North Carolina. The results supported the hypotheses that the predominant location pattern of law offices continues to be in the downtown area near the courthouse facilities and that the majority of the firms have a local orientation. Also, proximity to the county courthouse was the principal reason for firms to locate downtown. Suburban firms tend to locate near their important clientele, are generally larger than downtown firms, and place a higher value upon proximity to major transportation links. There were no significant differences between downtown and suburban firms with regard to their perception of importance of the image of their building, availability of parking, proximity to labor, and proximity to amenities, as they related to their locational decisions. The hypotheses "suburban firms do not tend to specialize in the categories of law that require regular access to the courthouse" and "law office location is dependent upon types of law practiced" were not supported by the data. Only a few categories of law, such as tort, personal injury and negligence for downtown firms; and probate, tax and corporate law for suburban firms were shown to have a significant relationship with the downtown or suburban location of the firm. |
| General note | Submitted to the faculty of the Department of Geography and Planning. |
| General note | Advisor: Philip Shea |
| Dissertation note | M.A. East Carolina University 1991 |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references (leaves 155-160). |
| Genre/form | Academic theses. |
| Genre/form | Academic theses. |
| Genre/form | Thèses et écrits académiques. |
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