Industrial deconcentration is the movement of industrial zones (

factories A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. T ...

) away from the center of the

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 further away from each other. It is similar to suburbanization, a residential trend in which a large number of the population move away from the

metropolis A metropolis () is a large city or conurbation which is a significant economic, political, and cultural center for a country or region, and an important hub for regional or international connections, commerce, and communications. A big ci ...

as the

inner city The term ''inner city'' has been used, especially in the United States, as a euphemism for majority-minority lower-income residential districts that often refer to rundown neighborhoods, in a downtown or city centre area. Sociologists some ...

becomes overcrowded. Industrial deconcentration occurs when a previously established

industrial district Industrial district concept was initially used by Alfred Marshall to describe some aspects of the industrial organisation of nations. Industrial district (ID) is a place where workers and firms, specialised in a main industry and auxiliary indus ...

becomes unable to provide efficiently for its own populace due to overcrowding. In a market economy the massive

competition Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, indiv ...

and overcrowding of the metropolitan area forces people and businesses to move out to less-industrial areas with less traffic congestion. Modernization in the social, economic, and technological fields of a country is a factor in accelerating industrial deconcentration. This phenomenon is more apparent in nations that have been industrialized for a longer time. Most countries experiencing industrial deconcentration at the beginning of the 21st century are the states that began industrializing after the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. Industrial deconcentration is a conscious goal in a comprehensive

decentralization Decentralization or decentralisation is the process by which the activities of an organization, particularly those regarding planning and decision making, are distributed or delegated away from a central, authoritative location or group. Conce ...

policy: to deconcentrate population without excessive

commuting Commuting is periodically recurring travel between one's place of residence and place of work or study, where the traveler, referred to as a commuter, leaves the boundary of their home community. By extension, it can sometimes be any regul ...

, jobs need to be created outside the cities.

See also