Offices, Information Technology and Locational Trends
This article examines the role of new information and communication
technology in the design and location of office facilities for information-intensive
organizations. Four main topics are presented: the changing nature
of office functions in information-intensive firms; the emerging pattern
of telecommunication systems in large metropolitan centers; the economic
and organizational factors that influence the location of "back-office
facilities"; and the implications for cities of trends in centralization
and decentralization of office functions in the United States.
THE INFORMATION SECTOR AND OFFICE ACTIVITIES
Office activities can be considered in two components: corporate
headquarters or front-office functions, and back-office functions.
The front office contains those functions that relate to organizational
development and marketing and, as a result, rely heavily on face-to-face
contact with clients; the back office, on the other hand, contains
those functions that relate to routine operations such as security
processing, claim payment, and other support services that do not
involve direct client contact.
Large-scale information-intensive firms devote approximately 55 percent
of employment to headquarter activity and 45 percent of employment
to back-office activity. Within the back office, the labor pool is
estimated to be 75 percent clerical and 25 percent managerial/professional.
In terms of space, the typical hack-office employee will occupy 150
to 160 square feet of space, while the managerial/professional employee
will occupy about 210 square feet (Coldwell Banker, personal communication).
The Traditional Location of Office Functions
Corporate headquarter functions have been traditionally located within
the central business district (CBD) of cities. The concentration of
office functions in the CBD facilitates face-to-face communication
with clients as well as complementary businesses. The back-office
functions of establishments were typically just what the name implied,
the "back office," situated behind the executives and top
staff in the front office.
There were two reasons for this concentration of back-office personnel
in the CBD. First, only in the CBD could information-intensive firms
assemble the large number of clerks and bookkeepers they required.
And second, the volume of paper generated and transferred between
the back and front offices required geographical proximity. Indeed,
at one time security firms were required to be in close proximity
to the New York Stock Exchange Clearinghouse. This requirement became
obsolete when electronic processing made it possible for firms to
"clear" at any location. The growing use of information
and telecommunication technologies in the office has led to even more
pervasive changes in the spatial and locational requirements for office
activities.
The Effects of Technology on Office Space
Beginning in the 1950s, with large mainframe computers such as Rands
Univac One and the IBM 650, banks, brokerage firms, insurance companies,
and other information-intensive industries were able to batch-process
administrative functions such as accounting and check processing (Forbes,
1985). The effect of these systems on office space was limited because
they monopolized the space of an entire floor, were not capable of
interfacing with users, and could not operate on line, in real time.
The advent of the silicon chip and its exceptional microprocessing
capability in the 1970s, however, brought computer technology to the
desktops of employees and began radically altering the nature of back-office
space as well as the work process.
The Changing Work Process
The back office was originally a central space through which, like
a pipeline, transactions flowed from department to department and/or
desk to desk until all relevant information was compiled and all processing
tasks were completed. Microcomputers in conjunction with mainframe
computers have completely transformed this process. By defining a
transaction by product line, one individual - via a microcomputer
with access to a database - can gather and process the relevant information
necessary to complete a transaction. Where it once took 14 Citibank
employees and multiple processing steps over a period of days to issue
a foreign letter of credit, it now takes "one individual less
than a day to receive, issue, and mail a letter of credit - all via
a terminal that is fully on line to a minicomputer-based system"
(Matteis, 1979). Thus,the work process has been decentralized according
to product line, but information previously spread throughout the
organization has been centralized within information process centers.
TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND OFFICE DEVELOPMENT
Advances in telecommunication technology are reinforcing the centralization
of critical command-and-control functions that are information based.
This is so despite the fact most futurists believe that telecommunication
technology will lead to the demise of central cities. The popular
view of communication technology is that electronic means of communication
will eliminate the need for face-to-face transactions. Advanced telecommunication
technologies, it is argued, facilitate access to economic and business
affairs, without confronting the time and psychic costs of urban life.
However, it is also possible to consider telecommunications as a
means to strengthen the information-function services that are centered
in central cities. As Noyelle (1983) has shown, cities are increasingly
serving as centers for advanced producer services, although the types
of services and geographical scope of the markets served by particular
kinds of cities vary substantially. The use of communication and information
technology makes it possible for advanced services, such as banking,
management consulting, accounting, advertising, and law, to be produced
in cities, utilizing a mixture of interpersonal and electronic communications.
The face-to-face contact in executive offices is the raw material
for decisions and services that are then marketed on a global basis,
emanating from large cities.
The Changing Regulatory Environment
Moreover, the deregulation of the telecommunication industry is leading
to the development of a new, highly competitive telecommunication
infrastructure in the nation's largest cities. Under the Communications
Act of 1934, telecommunication policy was guided by the principle
of "universal service," that is, "to make available
. . . to all the people of the United States a rapid, efficient, nationwide,
and world-wide wire and radio communication service with adequate
facilities at reasonable charges." Today, the guiding philosophy
for telecommunication policy is to foster innovation through the marketplace,
and this policy, which started at the federal level, is gradually
penetrating to the local and regional level. As a result, "universal
service" is no longer the predominant policy goal; consequently,
new telecommunication systems are being built where the major information
users are in order to link those users to each other. Thus, the key
information hubs of the nation, which happen to be based in a handful
of large metropolitan regions, are the sites of major new capital
investment in telecommunication infrastructure.
Cities and Fiber Optics
Fiber optic systems, which offer significant advantages for transmitting
large volumes of information from point to point, are being built
in such major cities as Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
The seven regional holding companies, created from the divestiture
of AT&T, are replacing copper wire with fiber in metropolitan
regions that have large concentrations of information-intensive industries.
For example, Pacific Telesis has installed fiber in San Francisco
and in Los Angeles, while NYNEX has built three fiber systems around
the borough of Manhattan in New York City. In addition, long-distance
fiber systems are being built to link the major cities in the United
States, often along the railroad rights-of-way that provided the nation's
transportation infrastructure in the 19th century. According to a
recent study by the U.S. Department of Commerce (1984), the largest
fiber system in the United States is AT&T's Northeast Corridor
network that runs 776 miles from Massachusetts to Virginia. In addition,
MCI is building a 4,250-mile long-distance network using railroad
rights-of-way of Arntrak and CSX Corporation, and Southern New England
Telephone and CSX Corporation are building a 5,000-mile "Lightnet"
fiber system that will serve 43 cities in 24 states east of the Mississippi
River.
By installing the newest forms of telecommunication technology in
the largest urban areas first, the dominance of these areas as the
focal point for conducting business will be reinforced (Moss, 1986).
In fact, because telecommunications have also facilitated the extension
of market reach and thus the rise of the multinational firm, cities
with access to the most sophisticated telecommunication systems will
have a comparative advantage with regard to choice of information
services. Front-office functions, reliant on direct client contact
and using technology to coordinate dispersed operations, are likely
to become highly centralized in a small number of information-based
cities.
The deregulation of the telecommunication industry has also spurred
competition for communication services at the local level, and in
the largest cities, there is a growing choice of telecommunication
systems for intra-urban communications. In downtown Chicago, a three-mile
fiber optic system is being built by an independent company, Chicago
Fiber Optic, that serves the core business district, and in New York,
Teleport Communications has installed a 150-mile fiber system that
provides an alternative communication network to New York Telephone
for large users of information.
Teleport Communications is a partnership of Western Union Communications
Systems, Inc., and Merrill Lynch Telecommunications, Inc., that provides
a fiber and satellite communication center in conjunction with a 100-acre
office park development. Today, there are more than 20 teleports in
operation across the country, and they range from satellite antenna
farms to real estate developments that have added communication satellite
Earth stations. Almost all are built and operated by the private sector;
and New York Teleport represents a collaborative enterprise between
government and business. The city of New York owns the land on Staten
Island where the satellite center and office park are situated; the
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is responsible for infrastructure
and office development, and Teleport Communications manages and markets
the communication systems (Moss, in press).
Technological advances and the new emphasis on marketplace criteria
in the provision of telecommunication services have helped, not hindered
large cities that are oriented to information and financial services.
For years, rural area's and small towns have benefited from the "universal
service" philosophy that encouraged extensive cross-subsidization
of telephone rates. With the advent of deregulation, telecommunication
systems will be built where the major sources of communication traffic
are located, and thus, there will be growing disparities between the
telecommunication infrastructure in cities versus that in hinterland
areas.
Technology in the Back Office
The back-office retail operations of the largest banks, which generally
handle check-processing and credit card operations, provide a valuable
case study of the relationship of telecommunications to office development
patterns. These bank operations were among the earliest to become
technologically standardized because the volume of these operations
made them conducive to the early forms of batch processing. In addition,
these operations were easily segregated from other back-office functions,
and little face-to-face contact was needed with the front office.
A survey of nine of the top 10 banks revealed that seven of them
had retail operations located outside the city in which their headquarters
were located. With the exception of Citicorp, these operations were
located within a 60-mile radius of headquarter operations. In the
case of Citicorp, its retail credit card operation is located in South
Dakota and linked to headquarters in New York City via its satellite
system. For the remaining banks, terrestrial microwave and standard
phone lines are generally used to link their retail operations, headquarter
operations, and central information-processing centers.
As an increasing number of back-office operations become standardized
and can be functionally separated from other operations, the mix of
proprietary systems and standard phone lines will permit further decentralization
of back-office operations to outlying areas. The extent of decentralization,
as will be discussed later, will depend on several additional factors.
Central to the ability of computer technology to permit vast productivity
gains and the decoupling of front and back offices is the establishment
of telecommunication systems that can provide links between and among
terminals and hosts (mainframes), data storage banks, printers, and
other computer and telecommunication equipment. A local area network
(LAN) can provide this link through the use of fiber optic cable,
coaxial cable, or standard phone lines. The particular technology
used depends on the need of users and the office design.
Because the development of such systems responds to economies of
scale, the offering of "shared tenant services" by developers
in conjunction with communication firms is growing. While developers
gain a potential source of revenue, small- and medium-sized tenants
get access to advanced telecommunication systems on a convenient one-stop
basis. It is fitting that the communication-oriented metropolitan
areas are the locus of most shared tenant services. As ofJanuary 1985,
of 51 shared tenant service buildings in use, 49 percent were located
in the New York, Washington, D.C., and Dallas-Ft. Worth metropolitan
areas (ULI, 1985).
Whether a LAN is a proprietary system or a shared system, the suitability
of a building for back- or front-office location depends on whether
such a system exists or can be installed. As electronic data flow
continues to replace paper flow, and as information centers increasingly
become the supplier and recipient of information bits, a LAN becomes
central to a firm's organizational infrastructure. No longer can a
building be seen solely in terms of its capacity to accommodate people;
it must now be seen in terms of its capacity to accommodate information.
Moreover, access to the roof of a building for the purpose of installing
satellite or microwave dishes is essential; in many buildings, the
rooftop has as much potential as the ground floor in terms of real
estate value.
In terms of the back office, decoupling these operations requires
that a telecommunication infrastructure exist between the back office,
front office, and data-processing centers. For back offices moving
to the periphery of cities or suburban locations, the availability
of terrestrial microwave, fiber optics, and standard phone lines is
necessary to this decoupling.
BACK-OFFICE LOCATIONAL PATTERNS
At the same time that telecommunication technologies have enhanced
the capacity to move information in, through, and out of central-city
office buildings, these technologies have also been a permissive,
though not a deterministic factor, in the decentralization of back-office
facilities (Mandeville, 1983). Trends in back-office location demonstrate
that their location depends on a web of factors that are essentially
a function of three dynamics: the size of an establishment; the economic
dynamics of city and suburban locations; and organizational determinants.
As there are a number of factors that affect each dynamic, and the
importance of these factors differs from city to city and firm to
firm, the extent of decentralization of back offices varies considerably
among industries and cities. A review of each dynamic and the major
factors that influence them will show that future trends in back-office
location will depend on the ability of different areas to effectively
meet the dynamic demands of back-office facilities.
Size of Establishment
Economies of Scale and Capital Investment. While telecommunications
can facilitate the movement of back offices to suburban locations,
it is important to recognize that only firms with well-managed and
highly routinized computer-based data-processing systems are able
to "decouple" their front- and back-office operations; such
firms include those that have grown sufficiently large and economical
in scale to have internalized support services found within a CBD
(Chinitz, 1984). In contrast, for small- and medium-sized firms, the
agglomeration of support services and complementary businesses within
the CBD, such as printing, are essential to the management of overhead
costs.
Most small- and medium-sized information-intensive firms still rely
on a mix of electronic data flow and paper flow. This mix may be the
result of limited automation, because of the capital requirements
and/or an absence of economies of scale necessary to make investment
in such systems cost-effective. Thus, the factors affecting the location
of back-office facilities for firms that have not internalized CBD
support services or become fully automated are significantly different.
Smaller Establishments and Locational Trends. Because
it is extremely difficult for smaller firms to take full advantage
of available technology, it is also becoming more difficult for these
firms to remain competitive. Thus, mergers and acquisitions are occurring
with increased rapidity as firms attempt to gain economies of scale
and capital. Indeed, it is estimated that solely through mergers and
acquisitions the number of banks at the beginning of this decade will
fall from 14,000 to 9,600 by this decades end (Business Week, 1983);
and it is estimated that life insurance companies will decline from
tire present level of 1,800 to 1,000 by 1990 (Otis, 1985).
For firms that do not become directly linked with larger firms, it
is becoming increasingly commonplace to use the data-processing and
product services of larger establishments. For example, First Interstate
Services - an affiliate of First Interstate Bank Corp. - operates
data-processing centers in seven states. In addition to processing
data for banks affiliated with First Interstate Bank Corp., as well
as some international banks, these centers service 800 domestic correspondent
banks located in 13 western states. And Securities Settlement Corporation,
a subsidiary of Travelers, provides clearing services for securities
firms throughout the nation. In addition, Securities Settlement Corporation
offers financial services, such as a money-market fund and an asset
management account, to its correspondent brokers.
In the future, back-office trends will show a consolidation of data-processing
functions either in new suburban office buildings on the periphery
of major metropolitan regions or in customized central-city structures
that have been designed to specifically serve information-intensive
industries. Whether through merger or a "correspondent"
relationship, economies of scale will dictate the consolidation of
data activity and services. This trend is apparent in upstate New
York where the M&T Bankwhich handles data-processing-related services
for 40 correspondent banksis headquartered in Buffalo and houses its
data-processing and back-office facilities in Williarnsville, a suburb
of Buffalo. Conversely, lrving Bank Corporation, which provides data-processing
services for 13 correspondent banks, has incorporated its computer
facilities in its new office building in Manhattan. Shearson/American
Express is building a new computer center in Manhattan that will consolidate
its operations in a structure specifically designed to house its computer
and back-office operations.
The Economic Dynamics of City and Suburban Locations
Occupancy Cost. A significant factor
in locating back-office facilities in the periphery of a city or in
suburban locations is occupancy cost. Currently, CBD rental rates
are generally 20 to 50 percent higher than those found on the periphery
of a city or in a suburb. Occupancy cost, however, is strongly affected
by factors other than existing rental rates.
First, many firms have long-term leases within a CBD at rental rates
well below market value. Thus, the movement of back offices outside
the CBD will occur incrementally as long-term leases expire. And second,
the specific needs of back-office facilities - that is, large floor
areas, heavy floor-load capacity, and floor-to-floor ceiling heights,
strongly affect the range of alternatives available to developers.
Because of the intensive use of video display terminals, mainframe
computers, and word-processing equipment, electrical and telephone
lines are now installed under the floor. Thus, there is a need for
higher ceilings to accommodate raised floors. Further, large-scale
mainframe computer systems require heavy floor loads and areas of
40,000 square feet or more, space not typically found in traditional
office buildings.
In New York City and Chicago, where suitable building stock for renovation
exists, there are several examples of back-office facilities that
have moved to technologically renovated buildings. For instance, both
Manufacturers Hanover and Citibank successfully renovated space on
the periphery of Manhattan. And First Chicago Corporation successfully
renovated a former retail center in downtown Chicago. These renovations
can be part of a rental agreement, as in the case of Manufacturers
Hanover and Citibank, or stem from purchase of the building, as in
the case of First Chicago Corporation. Furthermore, rental agreements
should not be seen as constant. In lower Manhattan, Chemical Bank
net-leased a building in proximity to the financial district. By net-leasing
the building, Chemical Bank pays a set rental price for the entire
building in return for effective managerial control of the building.
From authority over tenant leases, to establishment of telecommunication
facilities, to provision and charge for cleaning services, Chemical
maintains control of cost factors as well as space for future expansion.
There are also many examples of establishments choosing the lower
occupancy costs available in the suburbs. This was cited as a major
reason for Bank America building a major complex in Concord, a suburb
of San Francisco. It is interesting to note that at the time of the
decision San Francisco had less than I percent vacant office space.
Although San Francisco presently has an 8 percent vacancy rate, there
is also a proposal to limit new construction to between 500,000 square
feet and 950,000 square feet annually (Dowall, 1985). When combined
with an existing shortage of suitable space for back-office development
and dramatically rising rental rates, the trend of large establishments
in San Francisco to move back offices to the surrounding suburbs is
reinforced.
Operating Expenses. In addition to space adaptability,
operating expenses that are absorbed by the tenant are closely associated
with occupancy cost. As back-office operations become increasingly
computer dependent and have evolved into 24-hour, three-shift operations,
the cost of electricity has become extremely important. Large-scale
computer systems require air conditioning on a year-round, round-the-clock
basis. Electrical cost is particularly significant in New York City
where electricity is 40 percent more expensive than in New.jersey.
Indeed, electrical cost was cited by Dean
Witter as a primary reason for moving its data-processing center
to a former Sears building in Dallas, Texas. Apart from the cost of
electrical power, there is a need for reliable power with adequate
backup in case of power brownouts or blackouts. Almost all data centers
are built with extensive backup power systems and are linked to other
computer centers that can take over data-processing functions in the
event power is interrupted.
Another expense in relocation to a suburban site is commutation time
for employees. Relocation of back-office operations to the periphery
of a city is only considered cost-effective if these areas are located
in close proximity to reliable public transportation or to good highway
systems. If this is not the case, the increasing length of commuter
time will increase labor costs. Indeed, the Bay Area Corporate Locational
Survey (Gruen, Gruen and Associates, 1984) found that transportation
and commute time was ranked third in importance by firms that established
new facilities inside the Bay Area from 1979 to 1984. For many firms
locating outside the city, where access roads exist and free parking
can be provided by the employer, the journey to work is considered
more reliable and shorterwhich reduces labor cost.
Labor Force Skills, Wages, and Perceptions. Another
significant factor in choosing a back-office site is locating a productive,
dependable, and accessible labor pool. The poor performance of big-city
school systems has led many employers to question the skills, quality,
and dependability of high school graduates. Because the use of computer
technology has led to higher job skills, dissatisfaction with city
school systems has been accentuated.
Establishments can, moreover, find large, well-educated labor pools
in the suburbs. The foundation of this pool is college-educated women
seeking part- and full-time employment close to their homes. Such
women provide a highly skilled, stable source of labor for jobs with
relatively low rewards and limited career advancement. A study of
back-office locational patterns in the San Francisco metropolitan
region found that the "female labor supply is the major differentiating
factor between the San Francisco metropolitan subregion now attracting
most back-office development and other areas that have not been sought
for this type of office development" (Nelson, 1986).
Furthermore, the cost of labor can be reduced by moving from cities
to areas with longer standard work weeks - 38 hours in the suburbs
as opposed to 35 hours in the city - and/or depressed economies with
lower wage rates. When Aetna Life, headquartered in Hartford, Connecticut,
established back-office sites in Elmira, New York, Fall River, Massachusetts,
and Lowell, Massachusetts, it was because these sites offered low
occupancy costs and wage rates plus an available and adequate labor
pool. These factors also contributed to Citicorp's decision to establish
a back-office facility in economically depressed Hagerstown, Maryland.
It should be noted, however, that this decision was used as a bargaining
device with the state of Maryland. Maryland's decision to grant Citicorp
the right to establish 20 full-service branches in the state demonstrates
the importance that state governments give to attracting "footloose"
information-processing activities. This development underscores the
influence of new technology on overall corporate strategy as well
as locational decisions.
Transportation Access. In addition to influencing the cost of labor,
transportation access is also an important economic consideration
in the location of particular back-office facilities. In the case
of banks, for instance, federal regulations still require that paper
generated by the teller be held for three days. This requires not
only large storage area's, but also access to major transportation
arteries. In addition, the existent paper flow involved with proxy
solicitation, bank statements, corporate trusts, tender offers, and
other material requires that these facilities be located close to
major Post Offices. First Chicago Corporation, among others, recognized
this factor when locating such operations near the largest Post Office
in the city.
Taxes. State and local taxes can also influence the cost of a particular
location; however, numerous studies have pointed to the limited role
of state and local tax rates in determining corporate location (Netzer,
1985). In New York City and San Francisco, property and utility taxes
are estimated to increase occupancy costs by approximately 5 percent.
These taxes are subject to considerable negotiation when a firm is
weighing alternative sites outside its current jurisdiction. In New
York City, for instance, sizable tax abatements were given to Shearson/Lehman
Brothers Inc., to induce construction of 1.5 million square feet of
space in downtown Manhattan. And New York States decision to reduce
local and state bank taxes from 25.8 to 18 percent was cited as a
reason for Morgan Guaranty Trust Company's decision to build 1.6 million
square feet of office space in downtown Manhattan.
Although cities can neutralize the negative impact of taxes through
tax abatements and credits to induce establishments to remain, other
state and local governments have lured establishments to their areas
by passing extremely attractive tax laws. The state of Delaware is
the best example of this policy. Beginning with Delaware's Financial
Center Development Act, a series of laws have been passed enticing
banks to Delaware. Citibank's 75,000-square-foot building in New Castle
houses its cash management services; Chase Manhattan has broken ground
on a 14-story building in Wilmington to house its Chase Bank U.S.A.
offices and a part of its credit card operations; andJ.P. Morgan &
Co., broke ground on a 300,000-square-foot backup data-processing
and communication center near Stanton (Ming, 1985).
Organizational Determinants
Corporate strategies and organizational priorities play an important
role in determining the extent of office dispersion. The majority
of the leading securities firms plan to continue housing the bulk
of their back-office operations in buildings located on the perimeter
of lower Manhattan. In the insurance industry, however, many of the
largest companies have data-processing centers located far from headquarter
operations. Metropolitan Life, which is headquartered in New York
City, has its data-processing operations located in Greenville, South
Carolina, Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Wichita, Kansas.
The pace of technological innovation in the office varies among industries;
in many sectors, vital activities have yet to be standardized. As
a result, many firms believe that it is essential to keep their technical
and product development staff close to their back offices. The extent
of flux within back offices was commented on by Stephen L. Hammerman,
chief administrative officer of Merrill Lynch & Company (Business
Week, 1985): "It's very important that each firm ensure that
proper procedures are in place. If everybody's just going to copy
new products to compete in the marketplace without first having the
operating systems and back office in place, there's going to be total
disaster." Thus, until operations are standardized, movement
of back-office facilities to dispersed locations will not be as fast
as the technological feasibility of doing so.
Tied to organizational decisions regarding the degree and rapidity
of back-office movement are preferences that exist among decision
makers. Some firms still have a "local commitment" to the
area in which they are situated. Thus, other factors being equal or
even somewhat unequal, a firm will remain within a city's boundaries.
City commitment was cited by Northwestern Mutual as a major reason
for building a 500,000-square-foot complex in downtown Milwaukee.
At the time the building was completed in 1979, land in suburban areas
was less than half the cost of downtown space.
CONCLUSION
This article highlighted the increasing trend toward both centralization
and decentralization of office activities. New communication technologies
are no substitute for the office, and remote work will not replace
face-to-face contact. Rather, the heightened use of information technologies
allows firms to centralize key executive and decision-making functions
in a handful of central cities, while dispersing the routine, data-processing,
and support activities to sites on the edge of large metropolitan
regions. Telecommunication systems are not leading to the obsolescence
of central cities, but are allowing the face-to-face decisions and
transactions that occur in major financial capitals to serve geographically
larger markets. The deregulation of the communication industry, combined
with advances in new technology, presents a particularly important
challenge for planners, developers, and managers of office space.
Communication and information technologies are creating new choices
in office location and new demands for office structures that can
accommodate modern information systems.
REFERENCES
Chinitz, Benjamin. 1984. "The Influence of Communications and
Data Processing Technology on Urban Form," in Robert D. Ebel,
ed., Research in Urban Economics, Volume 4 (Greenwich, Connecticut:
JAI Press).
Coldwell Banker. 1984. Personal communication.
Dowall, David. 1985. "Back Offices and the Proposed City-Wide
Growth Cap" (Draft of Memorandum to the San Francisco Board of
Supervisors, University of California, Berkeley, California, May 21).
Forbes, Charles. 1985. "Electronic Banking Today and Tomorrow."
Banker's Monthly Magazine, January 15, 1985, p. 19.
Gruen Gruen + Associates. 1984. Bay Area Corporate Locational
Survey (San Francisco, California: The Bay Area Council).
Mandeville, Thomas. 1983. "The Spatial Effects of Information
Technology." Futures 15(1): 67.
Matteis, Richard. 1979. "The New Back Office Focuses on Customer
Service." Harvard Business Review March-April: 147.
Ming, Marcia. 1985. "Banking Bonanza, Out-of-State Banks Are
Flocking to Deregulated Delaware." Sunday News Journal,
Wilmington, Delaware, July 13,1985, p. 3.
Moss, Mitchell L. 1986. "Telecommunications
and the Future of Cities." Land Development Studies
3(1): 7.
Moss, Mitchell L. In press. "Telecommunications
and Large World Cities: A Case Study of New York," in R.
Lipper, et al., eds., Teleports and the Intelligent City (Homewood,
Illinois: DowJones-Irwin).
Nelson, Kristin. 1986. "Labor Demand, Labor Supply, and the
Suburbanization of Low-Wage Office Work," in A. Scott et al.,
eds., Production, Work and Territory (Boston: Alien and Unwin).
Netzer, Dick. 1985. State Tax Policy and Economic Development:
What Should Governors Do When Economists Tell Them That Nothing Works?
(Working Paper, New York University Urban Research Center).
Noyelle, Thierry J. 1983. "The Rise of Advanced Services: Some
Implications for Economic Development in U.S. Cities." Journal
of the American Planning Association, Summer 1983.
Otis, Kenneth. 1985. "An Industry Overview: Chain Reaction Augurs
Forthcoming Changes." National Underwriter, September
7, 1985, p. 14.
"The Revolution in Financial Services." Business Week,
November 28, 1983, pp. 88-89.
The Urban Land Institute. 1985. Smart Buildings and Technology-Enhanced
Real Estate, Volume I (Washington, D.C.: ULI) pp. 28-29.
U.S. Department of Commerce. 1984. A Competitive Assessment of
the U.S. Fiber Optics Industry (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department
of Commerce, International Trade Administration, Office of Telecommunications),
p. 32.
"Wall Street's Back-Office Blues." Business Week,
November 4, 1985, p. 24.
Originally published in The Changing
Office Workspace
J. Thomas Black, Kelly S. Roark, Lisa S. Schwartz, eds.
The Urban Land Institute, Washington, DC 1986