An industrial park (also known as industrial estate, trading estate) is an area zoned and planned for the purpose of industrial development. An industrial park can be thought of as a more "heavyweight" version of a

business park A business park or office park is a designated area of land in which many office buildings are grouped together. These types of developments are often located in suburban areas where land and building costs are more affordable, and are typically ...

or office park, which has offices and light industry, rather than heavy industry. Industrial parks are notable for being relatively simple to build; they often feature speedily erected single-space steel sheds, occasionally in bright colours. Industrial sheds within the Shoreham Dock complex - geograph

Industrial sheds within the Shoreham Dock complex - geograph

Benefits

Industrial parks are usually located on the edges of, or outside, the main residential area of a

city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

, and are normally provided with good transportation access, including road and rail. One such example is the large number of industrial estates located along the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, se ...

in the Thames Gateway area of

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. Industrial parks are usually located close to transport facilities, especially where more than one

transport modes Mode of transport is a term used to distinguish between different ways of transportation or transporting people or goods. The different modes of transport are air, water, and land transport, which includes rails or railways, road and off-road t ...

coincide, including

highway A highway is any public or private road or other public way on land. It is used for major roads, but also includes other public roads and public tracks. In some areas of the United States, it is used as an equivalent term to controlled-access ...

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a prep ...

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surfa ...

s and

port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as H ...

s. Another common feature of a

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and th ...

n industrial park is a water tower, which helps to hold enough water to meet the park's demands and for firefighting purposes, and also advertises the industrial park and locality, as usually the community's name and logo are painted onto its surface. This idea of setting land aside through this type of zoning has several purposes: * By concentrating dedicated infrastructure in a delimited area, to reduce the per-business cost of that infrastructure. Such infrastructure includes roadways, railroad sidings, ports, high-power electric supplies (often including three-phase electric power), high-end communications cables, large-volume water supplies, and high-volume gas lines. * To attract new business by providing an integrated infrastructure in one location. * Eligibility of Industrial Parks for benefits. * To set apart industrial uses from urban areas to try to reduce the environmental and social impact of the industrial uses. * To provide for localized environmental controls that are specific to the needs of an industrial area.

Benchmarking

For the manufacturing companies located in industrial parks, the performance of industrial park operators is important, as the costs for infrastructure and services charged by the industrial park operator is a serious factor for the competitiveness of the manufacturing companies.

Criticism

Different industrial parks fulfill these criteria to differing degrees. Many small communities have established industrial parks with only access to a nearby highway, and with only the basic utilities and roadways. Public transportation options may be limited or non-existent. Industrial parks in developing countries such as Pakistan face a myriad of additional difficulties. This includes the availability of a skilled workforce and the clustering together of radically different industrial sectors (pharmaceuticals and heavy engineering, for example), which often leads to unfavorable outcomes for quality centered industries.

Variations

An industrial park specializing in

biotechnology Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used ...

is called a biotechnology industrial park. It may also be known as a bio-industrial park or eco-industrial cluster. Flatted factories exist in cities like

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

and

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a List of cities in China, city and Special administrative regions of China, special ...

, where land is scarce. These are typically similar to

flats Flat or flats may refer to: Architecture * Flat (housing), an apartment in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and other Commonwealth countries Arts and entertainment * Flat (music), a symbol () which denotes a lower pitch * Flat (soldier), ...

, but house individual industries instead. Flatted factories have cargo lifts and roads that serve each level, providing access to each factory lot.

References

External links