Industrial parks are areas designed for manufacturing and heavy industry, typically located away from residential and commercial areas. They offer benefits such as economies of scale, tax incentives, and specialized themes, but can also face opposition due to potential environmental hazards.
An industrial park is a type of real estate development specially designed and zoned to house industrial and manufacturing buildings. They are typically found away from residential and commercial areas and in places where land is relatively cheap. Industrial parks are common all over the world and are unique in history since the time of the Industrial Revolution.
Before the development of advanced manufacturing processes and assembly lines, most industrial development was undertaken on an ad hoc basis, blossoming close to natural resources or in urban hubs that made supply distribution easy. European cities, such as Edinburgh and Dublin, are prime examples of industrial structures juxtaposed with residential and commercial buildings. As the sciences of manufacturing, urban planning, and transportation infrastructure progressed during the 19th and early 20th centuries, there was a tendency to separate factories and manufacturing plants and group them together away from living spaces and close to transport routes.
The industrial park is connected in concept to business parks and office parks, with a focus on heavy industry rather than corporate and historically white operations. All three types, however, operate on the basis of providing specific benefits to tenants, primarily focusing on the concept of economies of scale. Park developers can afford to install high-volume electricity, communications, and fuel lines, and other things like road and rail access points that wouldn’t be possible in mixed-use areas. This serves both to attract industrial tenants and to reduce the unit cost of utilities and shipping.
Additionally, in some jurisdictions there may be tax incentives or other benefits offered to businesses for relocating to an industrial park. Parks may also have a specific theme to appeal to them, such as being particularly green or geared towards a specific type of industry. In many places, industrial parks designed for high-tech industries have gained strong popularity since the 1990s, offering unique benefits such as high-speed broadband Internet access at a time when it was still extremely rare in the private sector.
Despite their benefits, industrial parks are not without their critics. Some argue that all but a few of the most dedicated green developments are, in fact, excessively hazardous to the environment due to the high concentration of potential pollutants. Common types of assets found in an industrial park can include power plants, incinerators, and wastewater treatment plants. Each of these facilities can generate a high level of potentially hazardous waste and is often subject to a high degree of Not-In-My-BackYard (NIMBY) opposition from nearby residents and property owners.
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