Logistics land use patterns in metropolitan Canada

Abstract

This paper focuses on the spatial patterns of freight and logistics activities in Metropolitan Canada. The literature acknowledges that these activities, while fundamentally important to economic and social wellbeing in cities, also contribute negatively to aspects of urban life through their associated vehicular traffic for example. The at times sprawling nature of their pattern (Dablanc, Ogilvie, & Goodchild, 2014; Dablanc & Ross, 2012), driven by industry desires for larger footprints, can further exacerbate these negatives. However, the existence of sprawl is not common in all major centres, with local variations in influencing factors interacting with systematic developments in the logistics industry (e.g. larger facilities). The objectives of this paper are to analyse the pattern of logistics developments in Canadian cities and to explore the factors influencing the observed patterns. The methodology employs a case study approach (building on the authors previous work on the Greater Toronto Area - (Woudsma, Jakubicek, & Dablanc, 2015), obtaining fine-grained spatial data on logistics businesses and their employment levels across selected Canadian cities including Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, Winnipeg and Halifax. The data used to assess these patterns were business listings from DMTI spatial, a Canadian provider of geospatial data. The data set used in this paper contains listings of business names, addresses, SIC codes in 2002, and NAICS and SIC codes in 2012. For analysis of this data, our approach uses basic spatial indicators, like mean centre of establishments and average distance to mean centre, along with statistical analysis of facility types and intra-regional changes. The exploration of influencing factors is conducted through in-depth review of industry publications, regional news sources, and conversations with experts in the commercial development industry in each case study city. Preliminary results indicate that in smaller metropolitan areas (Winnipeg, Halifax), the land supply pressures, and scope of logistics developments result in no evidence of sprawl. In the remaining cities, there is moderate evidence of sprawl, with noted influences including supply and local development controls. These results are discussed in the context of the current literature on urban logistics sprawl with directions for future work provided.