is interesting and fruitful when (perhaps only when) there are non­ convexities, space should not be thought of as a panacea whereby problems­ those associated with economies of scale, for example -can be made to disap­ pear. There is no guarantee, for example, that production units will be operated in convex regions of their total cost curves, even if they are constrained to oper­ ate in a 'space economy'. These considerations led to the conclusion that the role of spatial choice and the determinants of such choice would be best analysed by case study. This book is one such study. It is based on my doctoral dissertation at the University of Cambridge, fmanced by a grant from the Social Science Research Council.