Editing Factory (section)

== Siting the factory ==
[[File:WomanFactory1940s.jpg|thumb|left|A factory worker in 1942 [[Fort Worth, Texas]], United States.]]

Before the advent of [[Public transport|mass transportation]], factories' needs for ever-greater concentrations of [[labourer]]s meant that they typically grew up in an urban setting or fostered their own [[urbanization]]. Industrial [[slum]]s developed, and reinforced their own development through the interactions between factories, as when one factory's output or waste-product became the raw materials of another factory (preferably nearby). [[Canal]]s and [[Rail transport|railways]] grew as factories spread, each clustering around sources of cheap energy, available materials and/or mass markets. The exception proved the rule: even [[Greenfield land|greenfield]] factory sites such as [[Bournville]], founded in a rural setting, developed their own housing and profited from convenient communications systems.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bvt.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/The-Bournville-Story.pdf|title=The Bournville Story|date=2010|website=Bournville Village Trust}}</ref>

[[Regulation]] curbed some of the worst excesses of [[industrialization]]'s factory-based society, labourers of [[Factory Acts]] leading the way in Britain. [[Tram]]s, automobiles and [[Urban planning|town planning]] encouraged the separate development of industrial suburbs and residential suburbs, with labourers commuting between them.

Though factories dominated the Industrial Era, the growth in the [[Tertiary sector of the economy|service sector]] eventually began to dethrone them:{{verify source|date=December 2010}} the focus of labour, in general, shifted to central-city office towers or to semi-rural campus-style establishments, and many factories stood deserted in local [[Rust Belt|rust belts]].

The next blow to the traditional factories came from [[globalization]]. Manufacturing processes (or their logical successors, [[Assembly line|assembly]] plants) in the late 20th century re-focussed in many instances on [[Special Economic Zone]]s in developing countries or on [[maquiladora]]s just across the national boundaries of industrialized states. Further re-location to the least industrialized nations appears possible as the benefits of [[outsourcing|out-sourcing]] and the lessons of flexible location apply in the future.{{verify source|date=December 2010}}