Abstract

This article explains how industrial growth is related to expanding metropolitan areas and sets forth specific recommendations for assuring balanced growth of both. This article also examines two specific questions which are fundamental to an understanding of the problem. First, what is the relationship between expansion of manufacturing and population growth in metropolitan areas? Second, how can the available resources of an area be most effectively managed as population expands? Both these questions raise major policy issues for Californians. On the basis of results of the analysis some proposals are made for assuring stable and prosperous conditions in rapidly growing metropolitan areas. In few fields of economic analysis is it more difficult to analyze properly cause and effect than in the area of metropolitan growth and development. Does population come to an area because there are employment opportunities or are employment opportunities created because there is a large population in a region? The answer is, of course, that there is an interrelationship. As an area grows, markets are created which must be served and therefore new market oriented firms locate in a region to serve the needs of the population.