Pekin City as an Economic Center Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

Pekin City as an Economic Center - Essay Example This is the question we are going to pay attention to in this essay by looking at the urbanization and development of the city of Pekin in the state of Illinois (Fujita and These, 2002). Pekin City was first discovered after the Europeans immigrants explores landed on the eastern bank of the Illinois River. Pekin city started as an agricultural center with slight trading activities along the Illinois River. As a result of immigration, more people flew in leading to high density economic activity location thus leading to urbanization. Pekin City is located in the county of Tazewell in the state of Illinois, being the biggest city in the county of Tazewell, and the essential part of the Peoria metropolitan area. Pekin is situated on the Illinois River. Pekin City is the county seat and the government core for the county of Tazewell. Pekin City is accessible to air travel and river ways; rich and skillful work force; a lively local economy; an excellent quality life- thus enabling busin ess to thrive well in the city. From the census carried out in the year 2010, the Pekin city has a population of 34, 094. The extension of the city into the county of Peoria is limited by a small portion of the town (Fujita and These, 2002). From the research, Pekin city is the thirteenth populated city in Illinois. The city has managed to grow economically leading to its urbanization through several factors that are discussed in the following pages. 1. Source of economies The accessibility to air travel and river ways; rich and skillful work force; a lively local economy; an excellent quality life- has enhanced the development of Pekin city over years. Pekin city provides a variety of economic incentive and tools for expanding and innovating new business. An example of this business is the River way Business Park. The easy run of business has attracted many investors around the state and nation. In general, people from all around the nation and the state are attracted to the servic e (Fujita and These, 2002). a. Economies of scale at the firm level Over the years, city of Pekin has been going through significant changes. Some of the changes are the commercialization and industrialization expansion on route 29. This has enabled the growth of large firms like Pekin’s Auto Row. The large firms within the city of Pekin have upsurge specialization and use of technologies, hence increasing the efficiency while lowering the average cost of the firms. These have been a tremendous contribution to the growth and expansion of the Pekin City. b. Economies of scale at the place level As time goes by more settlement kicks in leading to clustering and over population within the city of Pekin. This lead to investors like Nat City Investments Inc. Company locating firms in the same sector closely, (agglomerating) within the city of Pekin, hence leading to agglomeration economies. The concept of agglomerating is associated to the knowledge of scale economies network effe cts. However, clustering of related industries together may lead to declining of costs production; it might be of advantages to the city. The multiple firms of the same sector clustering together in Pekin city attracts more suppliers and customers hence leading to the expansion and growth of the city (Fujita and These