The growth of business and professional services in the non- metropolitan Midwest

Since 1980, the economy of the non-metropolitan Midwest has undergone a prolonged crisis. The collapse of the farm economy in the early 1980s and the decline of employment in the manufacturing sector are just two of the many challenges facing Midwestern non-metropolitan counties in their struggle to survive. Policy makers have focused on the service sector as a source of new employment opportunities for non-metropolitan residents. The possibility of growth in the producer services sectors has been a source of some interest. With the emergence of advanced telecommunications, it has been theorized that producer services firms will begin to relocate the more routine aspects of their operations to non-metropolitan areas in order to take advantage of the relatively low wage structure of these locations. The purpose of this paper is to examine the growth and spatial distribution of one type of producer services, business and professional services, in the non-metropolitan counties of three Midwestern States: Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. -from Author