Warehouse and Distribution Facilities and Community Attributes: An Empirical Study

In this paper I examine empirically the largely unexplored proposition that the intraurban location and pricing of warehouse and distribution (W&D) facilities are inextricably linked to the intraurban geography of retailing, production, transportation systems, ‘warehouse’ labor, and local zoning. Estimated reduced-form W&D rent functions suggest that the influence of these predictors varies across small and large W&D facilities, presumably differing in the geographic scope of their operations. Small W&D facility rents are seen to be determined by the multiplicity of location factors already mentioned; in contrast, large W&D facility rents, seemingly unaffected by local market access and local zoning controls, are found to be mostly driven by surface and air-transportation access advantages. Overall, these findings suggest a role for a public policy aiming at facilitating the functioning of the W&D sector within contemporary metropolises.