THE SHIFT IN GEOGRAPHIC LOCATIONS OF PROFESSIONAL FIRMS IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

Supply of office space in Singapore has increased from 2,630,000 sq m in 1985 to 4,992,000 sq m in 1996. The corresponding growth in the office market has resulted in a shift in the geography of professional firms in Singapore. This study evaluates this shift and tests the observations against the traditional theories of office location and urban forms. Five types of professional firms, namely accounting, architectural, banking, law and real estate consultancy/appraisal firms were included in the study. Their geographic shift from 1985 to 1996 was studied by way of segmenting their locations in nine zones - eight in Singapore's central area and one as the rest of the island. The primary source of data was phone directories for the two subject years. The geographic shift was examined with respect to two concepts : agglomeration and decentralisation. Conforming to the theories of agglomeration, all types of firms in the study clustered in certain locations, albeit to certain different degrees. Strong agglomeration characteristics were particularly evident for banking firms, whose concentration in the prime commercial areas of Raffles Place and Shenton Way were more than 80% in both the study periods. On the other end of the continuum were the real estate consultancy/appraisal firms, which showed the least amount of agglomeration. The highest concentration of this type of firms were less than 30% in Shenton Way in 1985 and North Bridge Road in 1996 With respect to decentralisation, there was a consistent decrease in the percentage of all types of professional firms located in the central area in the two study periods. All five study groups displayed the tendency to shift out of the central area. This shows that, despite the evident trend for agglomeration, some types of firms have a greater tendency to choose to locate out of the central area than do others. This is probably due to the fact that some types of firms have a greater ability to pay the higher rents charged in the central area.