Sven Illeris: Location of Service Activities in Denmark, with
Special Regard to Rural Areas. Geografisk Tidsskrift 75: 58-64 .
København, juni l, 1976.

The paper describes the purposes and methods of a study of the present and future location of service activities. Some of the most important findings are dealt with, e.g. estimates and plans for the 1988 distribution of service between size-classes of towns.

Sven Illeris, M.Sc., National Agency for Physical Planning,
Holbergsgade 23, DK 1057, Copenhagen K.

In order to improve the basis for national and regional planning, the National Planning Secretariat (now included in the National Agency for Physical Planning) of the Danish Ministry of Environment has carried out an investigation of the present and future location of service activities.

The background is the fact that according to the Danish Act on National and Regional Planning, regional plans has to be drawn up for all countries, indicating i.a. the distribution of future urban development (§7). It is therefore a purpose of the study to map the present and estimate the future provision of private and public services in towns and villages of different sizes, as a basis for the planning of the future system of settlements.

The above-mentioned act states that it is a primary goal of national and regional planning to promote an equal development in the country. It is therefore attempted in the study to describe the provision of private and public services in the different parts of the country, in order to reveal inequalities in the access to services.

The method has been, for each sector of services, to collect all data available on the location of firms and institutions around 1960 and 1970; the sources have been official statistics, branch organizations, and public authorities. Furthermore, account has been taken of plans for the future location of public institutions, and estimates on the future location of private services have been set up in collaboration with branch organizations and other experts. For each sector the estimates have been adapted to the forecasts for the future development in Denmark as a whole included in the perspective planning report for the period 1972-87, edited by the Ministry of Budget and other ministries.

In spite of the growing importance of service activities — already accounting for more than 50 per cent of the total employment in Denmark — official statistics on the sector are scarce, compared to information on other economic sectors. The data collected for the different service activities are very heterogenous, and only employment data from the censuses of population cover the whole field in a comparable way.

The data used describe for each firm, institution, or job in which town or village it is located (according to the definitions of built-up areas applied at the censuses of population). The study does not deal with intra-urban locations.

The results of the investigation have been published in reports for each group of service activities, a summarizing report, and a special report summarizing the tendencies for size-classes of towns and villages (see references).

The Regional Distribution of Services

The regional distribution of service activities is highlighted on maps 1-6 which show the 1970 employment per capita in public and private local, regional, and high-level services, respectively. Local services are defined as those whose share of the total employment in non-agricultural economic activities is bigger in trade districts with center-towns of less than 5000 inhabitants than in trade districts with center-towns of 30 - 80.000 inhabitants. High-level services are those whose share of the total employment in non-agricultural economic activities in the Copenhagen region is more than twice as high as in trade districts with center-towns of 30 - 80.000 inhabitants. The remaining services are defined as regional.

On the whole, the islands of eastern Denmark are better covered than Jutland, and eastern Jutland is better covered than western Jutland. The major cities of course have a better provision with high-level services than smaller towns and villages, but there is no such differences in local services per capita. The changes in service employment per capita from 1965 to 1970 are shown in maps 7 - 8, for public and private activities, respectively. In both categories, the growth rates tend to be higher in Jutland than on the eastern islands. Thus the tendency has been towards a slightly more equal access to services.

Another result of the study is a classification of the

Danish towns according to their service employment
shown in map 9.

Development in Service Activities in Size-classes of Towns

Recent changes in the location of services in different size-classes of towns have been analyzed by means of the shift-and-share method. Data on the development of services in the towns themselves are not available for all activities. Therefore the basis of the analysis has been employment data for trade districts (towns including their rural hinterlands) from the 1965 and 1970 censuses. These data do not show the development of services separately in small urban settlements and rural districts. The districts are grouped according to the size of their central towns, and the service activities are grouped into public and private services on the local, regional, and superior levels, respectively.

In table 1, the 1965-70 development in each service category is split into the structural component (i.e. the growth that would have taken place if the trade district group had followed the national average development) and the special component (the deviation from the national average). The analysis shows that the employment growth primarily took place in the public services — particularly on the local level — and in the private high-level services. The global growth-rate of the total service employment did not differ much between the various size-classes; but the composition of the growth differed markedly. The Copenhagen region (with 1.800.000 inhabitants) had lower-than-average growth rates in the regional and local services. When the total growth rate nevertheless was close to the national average, it was due to the large share this special region has of the high-level services that forms a sector with a high growth rate. The provincial capitals (size 150-300.000 inhabitants) had growth rates close to the national average in all groups of service activities, and the composition of the sector is also close to the national average. Trade districts with a central town of 10-100.000 inhabitants have normal shares of regional and local services, but small shares of high level services. They would therefore have had a total growth of service-employment below the national average, were it not for the higher-than-average growth rates in private and local services. Trade districts with a central town of 2-10.000 inhabitants — and in most cases including rather big rural districts — have a relatively important share of local services, but a relatively small share of regional services and virtually no high level services. This composition of service activities would have meant a total growth rate below the national average, if not a slightly higher-than-average growth rate in private regional and local services had caused the growth rate to reach a somewhat higher level, near the national average.

The future distribution of services between size-classes of towns, according to present plans for the public institutions and expert estimates for the private activities, will show the tendencies listed in table 2.

In the Copenhagen area and other cities with more than 100.000 inhabitants, the service employment is estimated to grow at a rate slightly over the national average. In towns with 5-100.000 inhabitants, the growth rate is estimated to be close to the national average. In urban settlements with 1-5.000 inhabitants, there will probably be a small growth in service employment, but at a rate well below the national average. In settlements with less than 1.000 inhabitants and in rural areas, the service employment is estimated to decline at a rate of more than 1 per cent annually.

One factor contributing to these tendencies is the fact that the biggest cities have a relatively large share of the employment in the fastest growing sector, namely business services. However, the most important factor is that within a number of service activities, a concentration into bigger and fewer establishments or institutions is expected or planned.

These concentration tendencies are not expected to hit towns with more than 5.000 inhabitants to any serious degree; they may lose some functions while others are extended. In settlements with less than 5.000 inhabitants, however, a number of local services may be expected to disappear. Especially, settlements with less than 1.000 inhabitants are likely to suffer a severe loss of functions; and the concentration tendencies may rob settlements with less than 500 inhabitants (usually commanding a rural sphere of influence with less than 1.500 inhabitants) of all services, perhaps except a grocery.

In recent years the loss of service functions in small settlements have caused political worry, and political action to counteract these tendencies is considered. One result is the 1975 schools' act which allows the municipal councils to decide to maintain small schools. Another example is a grant from the Social Science Research Council to a study of the feasibility of combined local service units, which can operate on a very small population basis through combining retailing with other elementary service activities.

RESUME

Der redegøres for fremgangsmåden ved og nogle hovedresultater fra en undersøgelse af servicefunktionernes nuværende og fremtidige lokalisering, der er foretaget af det tidligere landsplansekretariat, nu miljøministeriets planstyrelse.

Formålet med undersøgelsen er for det første at resultaterne skal indgå i grundlaget for lands- og regionsplanlægningen af det fremtidige bymønster og placeringen af byvæksten, og for det andet at kortlægge uligheder i adgangen til service i de forskellige dele af landet.

Fremgangsmåden har været inden for hver enkelt privat branche og offentlig institutionsart at indhente offentlig statistik, andet foreliggende materiale fra offentlige myndigheder, brancheorganisationer og andre sagkyndige om den aktuelle geografiske fordeling, udviklingen siden ca. 1960 samt om skøn over eller planer for den fremtidige udvikling.

Resultaterne er offentliggjort i delrapporter om de enkelte
branchegrupper samt en sammenfattende rapport og en rapport
om skøn over serviceudviklingen fordelt på byklasser.

Blandt resultaterne må fremhæves at dækningen med lokal
service er bedre på øerne og tildels i Østjylland end i Vestjylland,
men at forskellene dog er blevet lidt mindre i de senere år.

Et andet resultat er en klassefikation af byerne som servicecentre.

Servicebeskæftigelsens udvikling 1965-70 i handelsdistrikter med centre af forskellig størrelse er underkastet en shift-and-share analyse. Den samlede servicebeskæftigelse udviste omtrent samme vækstrate i alle handelsdistriktklasser. I hovedstadsregionen var væksten i de fleste servicegrupper under landsgennemsnittet, men regionen havde en stor andel af den overordnede service — en sektor med høj vækst. Handelsdistrikter med centerbyer mellem 10.000 og 100.000 indb. har små andele af denne vækstsektor men til gengæld lå væksten i privat egns- og lokal service over landsgennemsnittet; det samme gælder i nogen grad handelsdistrikter med små centerbyer, men væksten var dog her lidt svagere.

Skøn og regneeksempler over fordelingen på bystørrelsesklasser af den i »Perspektivplanlægning 1972-1987« forudsatte udvikling frem til 1988 tyder på, at byer over 5.000 indb. vil få en vækst omkring eller lidt over landsgennemsnittet. I bebyggelser med 1.000-5.000 indb. kan derimod kun forventes en beskeden vækst i beskæftigelsen, og i mindre bebyggelser og rene landdistrikter en kraftig tilbagegang.

For at modvirke dette har de politiske myndigheder taget forskellige skridt til at lette opretholdelsen af service i små bebyggelser, og der er iværksat nærmere undersøgelser af mulighederne herfor.

REFERENCES

Lokaliseringen af liberale erhverv og erhvervsservice. Landsplansudvalgets
sekretariat 1972 (Sv. Illeris).

Lokaliseringen af social og sundhedsmæssig service. Landsplanudvalgets
sekretariat, 1973 (Lene Leth Nielsen).

Lokaliseringen af privat service i landdistrikter og mindre bymæssige
bebyggelser. Landsplanudvalgets sekretariat, 1974.
(Mette Thorvildsen).

Lokaliseringen af engroshandel og pengeinstitutter. Landsplansekretariatet,
1975 (Hoff og Overgård, Institut for Centerplanlægning).

Lokaliseringen af uddannelsesinstitutioner. Landsplansekretariatet,
1975 (Lene Leth Nielsen, Eigil Christiansen).

Lokaliseringen af kulturelle aktiviteter, forlystelser m.v. Landsplansekretariatet,
1975 (Lene Leth Nielsen, Erik Paaske,
Sven Illeris, Wolfgang Framke).

Lokaliseringen af håndværk m.v. Planstyrelsen, 1976 /Håndværksrådet,
Mette Thorvildsen, Sven Illeris).

Lokaliseringen af detailhandel. Planstyrelsen, 1976 (Per Press,
Sven Illeris).

Lokaliseringen af trafikal service. Planstyrelsen, 1976. (Sven
Illeris, Vibeke Thomsen).

Lokaliseringen af offentlig forvaltning. Planstyrelsen, 1976.
(Sven Illeris, Niels Cortzen).

Lokaliseringen af service, sammenfatning. Planstyrelsen, 1976.
(Sven Illeris).

Skøn over serviceudviklingen fordelt på byklasser. Regionplanorientering
nr. 4. Planstyrelsen, 1976. (Sven Illeris).