Chapter 12: Services 375

KEY ISSUE 1

Where Did ServicesOriginate?

■ Three Types of Services■ Services in Early Rural Settlements■ Services in Early Urban Settlements

Services are provided in all societies, but in MDCs a majorityof workers are engaged in the provision of services. In NorthAmerica, three-fourths of workers are in services. The per-centage of service workers varies widely in LDCs but is typi-cally less than one-fourth. One reason for the wide variationis that in a number of LDCs, workers engaged in agricultureor manufacturing are counted in the service sector becausethey are employed by the government. ■

Three Types of ServicesServices generate more than two-thirds of GDP in most MDCs,compared to less than one-half in most LDCs (Figure 12-1). Log-ically, the distribution of service workers is opposite that of thepercentage of primary workers (see Figure 10-5). The servicesector of the economy is subdivided into three types—consumerservices, business services, and public services. Each of thesesectors is divided into several major subsectors (Figure 12-2).

Consumer ServicesThe principal purpose of consumer services is to provide serv-ices to individual consumers who desire them and can afford topay for them. Around 44 percent of all jobs in the United Statesare in consumer services. Four main types of consumer serv-ices are retail, education, health, and leisure.

• Retail and Wholesale Services. About 15 percent of allU.S. jobs. Department stores, grocers, and motor vehiclesales and service account for nearly one-half of these jobs;another one-fourth are wholesalers who provide merchan-dise to retailers.

• Education Services. About 10 percent of all U.S. jobs.Two-thirds of educators are employed in public schools, theother one-third in private schools. In Figure 12-2, educatorsat public schools are counted in public-sector employment.

• Health Services. About 12 percent of all U.S. jobs, prima-rily hospitals, doctors’ offices, and nursing homes.

• Leisure and Hospitality Services. About 10 percent ofall U.S. jobs. Around 70 percent of these jobs are in restau-rants and bars; the other 30 percent is divided evenlybetween lodging and entertainment.

Business ServicesThe principal purpose of business services is to facilitate otherbusinesses. Around 24 percent of all jobs in the United Statesare in business services. Professional services, financial serv-ices, and transportation services are the three main types ofbusiness services.

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FIGURE 12-1 Percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) from services, 2006. Services contribute morethan two-thirds of GDP in MDCs, compared to less than one-half in LDCs.

376 The Cultural Landscape

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• Financial Services. About 6 percent of all U.S. jobs. Thissector is often called “FIRE,” an acronym for finance, insur-ance, and real estate. One-half of the financial services jobsare in banks and other financial institutions, one-third ininsurance companies, and the remainder in real estate.

• Professional Services. About 12 percent of all U.S. jobs.One-half are in technical services, including law, manage-ment, accounting, architecture, engineering, design, andconsulting. The remaining one-half of this sector is in sup-port services, such as clerical, secretarial, and custodial work.

• Transportation and Information Services. About 6 per-cent of all U.S. jobs. One-half of these services are in trans-portation, primarily trucking. The other half are ininformation services such as publishing and broadcasting,as well as utilities such as water and electricity.

Public ServicesThe purpose of public services is to provide security and pro-tection for citizens and businesses. About 17 percent of all U.S.jobs are in the public sector. Nine percent of public school

employees are excluded from this total and counted insteadunder education (consumer) services. Excluding educators,one-fourth of public-sector employees work for the federal gov-ernment, one-fourth for one of the 50 state governments, andone-half for one of the tens of thousands of local governments.

Changes in Number of EmployeesFigure 12-2 shows changes in employment in the United Statesbetween 1972 and 2009. All of the growth in employment inthe United States has been in services, whereas employment inprimary- and secondary-sector activities has declined.

Within business services, jobs expanded most rapidly inprofessional services (such as engineering, management, andlaw), data processing, advertising, and temporary employmentagencies. Jobs grew more slowly in finance and transportationservices because of improved efficiency—fewer workers areneeded to run trains and answer phones, for example.

On the consumer services side, the most rapid increase hasbeen in the provision of health care, including hospital staff,clinics, nursing homes, and home health-care programs. Otherlarge increases have been recorded in education, entertain-ment, and recreation. The share of jobs in retailing has notincreased—more stores are opening all the time, but they don’tneed as many employees as in the past. The Global Forces,Local Impacts box discusses the impact on services of thesevere recession in the early twenty-first century.

Services in Early Rural SettlementsBefore the establishment of permanent settlements as servicecenters, people lived as nomads, migrating in small groupsacross the landscape in search of food and water. They gatheredwild berries and roots or killed wild animals for food (seeChapter 10). At some point, groups decided to build perma-nent settlements. Several families clustered together in a rurallocation and obtained food in the surrounding area. What serv-ices would these nomads require? Why would they establishpermanent settlements to provide these services?

No one knows the precise sequence of events through whichsettlements were established to provide services. Based onarchaeological research, settlements probably originated to pro-vide consumer and public services. Business services came later.

Early Consumer ServicesThe earliest permanent settlements may have been establishedto offer consumer services, specifically places to bury the dead.Perhaps nomadic groups had rituals honoring the deceased,including ceremonies commemorating the anniversary of adeath. Having established a permanent resting place for thedead, the group might then install priests at the site to performthe service of saying prayers for the deceased. This would haveencouraged the building of structures—places for ceremoniesand dwellings. By the time recorded history began about 5,000

GLOBAL FORCES, LOCAL IMPACTSServices in the Recession

The service sector of the economy hasbeen the engine of growth in the econ-omy of MDCs, even as industry and agri-culture have declined. But it was theservice sector that triggered the severeeconomic recession that began in 2008.Principal contributors to the recessionwere some of the practices involved infinancial services and real estate services,including:

• A rapid rise in real estate prices,encouraging speculators to acquireproperties for the purpose of resellingthem quickly at even higher prices

• Poor judgment in lending by financialinstitutions, especially by offering so-called “subprime” mortgages to indi-viduals who were unable to repay them

• Invention of new financial servicespractices, such as derivatives, in whichinvestors bought and sold risky assets,

with the expectation that the value ofthe assets would continually rise

• Decisions by government agencies toreduce or eliminate regulation of thepractices of new financial institutions

• Unwillingness of financial institu-tions to make loans once the reces-sion started.

The early twenty-first century reces-sion was also distinctive because it rap-idly diffused to every region of the world.At the same time, the impact of theglobal recession varied by region andlocality.

At a global scale, the early twenty-first century recession resulted in anabsolute decline in world GDP, for thefirst time since the 1930s (Figure 12-3).GDP grew by an annual average of 3.7percent between 1960 and the start of therecession in 2008. Only twice in the past

50 years did GDP grow at a rate of lessthan 1 percent per year.

At a regional scale, MDCs were moreaffected by the global recession. GDPgrew slowly in LDCs, but it declinedsharply in MDCs. The countries leastaffected by the global recession were thepoorest countries of sub-Saharan Africa.These countries are the most peripheralto the global economy.

At a local scale, the recession hit some communities harder than others (Figure 12-4). In the United States, someof the hardest-hit communities wereindustrial centers in the Midwest, wherebankrupt carmakers Chrysler and GMwere based. But most of the hardest-hitcommunities were in the South and West,regions that had been the most prosper-ous. These communities were especiallyaffected by declines in services, especiallyreal estate and finance. ■

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377

378 The Cultural Landscape

years ago, many settlements existed, and some featured a tem-ple. In fact, until the invention of skyscrapers in the late nine-teenth century, religious buildings were often the talleststructures in a community.

Settlements also may have been places to house families, per-mitting unburdened males to travel farther and faster in theirsearch for food. Women kept “home and hearth,” making house-hold objects, such as pots, tools, and clothing, as well as educat-ing the children. These household-based services evolved overthousands of years into schools, libraries, theaters, museums,and other institutions that create and store a group’s values andheritage and transmit them from one generation to the next.

People also needed tools, clothing, shelter, containers, fuel,and other material goods. Settlements therefore became manu-facturing centers. Men gathered the materials needed to make avariety of objects, including stones for tools and weapons, grassfor containers and matting, animal hair for clothing, and woodfor shelter and heat. Women used these materials to manufacturehousehold objects and maintain their dwellings. The variety ofconsumer services expanded as people began to specialize. Oneperson could be skilled at repairing tools, another at traininghorses. People could then trade these services with one another.Settlements took on a retail-service function.

Early Public ServicesPublic services probably followed religious activities into theearly permanent settlements. The group’s political leaders alsochose to live permanently in the settlement, which may havebeen located for strategic reasons, to protect the group’s landclaims.

Everyone in a settlement was vulnerable to attack from othergroups, so for protection, some members became soldiers, sta-tioned in the settlement. The settlement likely was a good basefrom which the group could defend nearby food sources againstcompetitors. For defense, the group might surround the settle-ment with a wall. Defenders were stationed at small openings oratop the wall, giving them a great advantage over attackers.Thus settlements became citadels—centers of military power.Walls proved an extremely effective defense for thousands ofyears, until warfare was revolutionized by the introduction ofgunpowder in Europe in the fourteenth century.

Early Business ServicesEveryone in settlements needed food, which was supplied bythe group through hunting or gathering. At some point, some-one probably wondered, why not bring in extra food for hardtimes, such as drought or conflict? This perhaps was the originof transportation services.

Not every group had access to the same resources, becauseof the varied distribution of vegetation, animals, fuel wood, andmineral resources across the landscape. People brought objectsand materials they collected or produced into the settlementand exchanged them for items brought by others. Settlementsbecame warehousing centers to store the extra food. The settle-ment served as neutral ground where several groups couldsafely come together to trade goods and services. To facilitate

this trade, officials in the settlement provided producer serv-ices, such as regulating the terms of transactions, setting fairprices, keeping records, and creating a currency system.

Through centuries of experiments and accidents, residentsof early settlements realized that some of the wild vegetationthey had gathered could generate food if deliberately placed inthe ground and nursed to maturity—in other words, agricul-ture, as described in Chapter 10. Over time, settlementsbecame surrounded by fields, where people produced most oftheir food by planting seeds and raising animals rather than byhunting and gathering.

Services in Early Urban SettlementsUrban settlements date from the beginning of documented his-tory in the Middle East and Asia. In ancient times, a handful ofurban settlements provided business and public services, aswell as some consumer services with large market areas. Virtu-ally all settlements were rural, though, because the economywas based on the agriculture of the surrounding fields.

Services in Ancient CitiesUrban settlements may have originated in Mesopotamia, part ofthe Fertile Crescent of the Middle East (see Figure 8-6), and dif-fused at an early date to Egypt, China, and South Asia’s IndusValley. Or they may have originated independently in each ofthe four hearths. In any case, from these four hearths, the con-cept of urban settlements diffused to the rest of the world.

EARLIEST URBAN SETTLEMENTS. Among the oldestwell-documented urban settlements is Ur in Mesopotamia(present-day Iraq). Ur, which means “fire,” was where Abrahamlived prior to his journey to Canaan in approximately 1900 B.C.,according to the Bible. Archaeologists have unearthed ruins inUr that date from approximately 3000 B.C (Figure 12-5).

Titris Höyük, in present-day Turkey, occupied a 50-hectare(125-acre) site and apparently had a population of about10,000. The site is especially well preserved today because after300 years the settlement was abandoned and never covered bynewer buildings. Recent evidence unearthed at Titris Höyükfrom about 2500 B.C. suggests that early urban settlements werewell-planned communities. Houses were arranged in a regularpattern—walls and streets were apparently laid out first.Palaces, temples, and other public buildings were placed at thecenter, and cemeteries were beyond the walls. Houses varied insize but were of similar design, built around a central courtyardthat contained a crypt where some of the family members wereburied. The several cooking areas within the houses indicatethat they were apparently occupied by an extended family, andevidence of wine production and weaving has been found inthe houses.

ANCIENT ATHENS. Settlements were first established inthe eastern Mediterranean about 2500 B.C. The oldest include

Chapter 12: Services 379

Knossos on the island of Crete, Troy in Asia Minor (Turkey),and Mycenae in Greece. These settlements were trading centersfor the thousands of islands dotting the Aegean Sea and theeastern Mediterranean and provided the government, militaryprotection, and other public services for their surroundinghinterlands. They were organized into city-states—independentself-governing communities that included the settlement andnearby countryside.

Athens, the largest city-state in ancient Greece, was probablythe first city to attain a population of 100,000 (Figure 12-6).Athens made substantial contributions to the developmentof culture, philosophy, and other elements of Western civi-lization, an example of the traditional distinction betweenurban settlements and rural. The urban settlements providednot only public services but also a concentration of consumerservices, notably cultural activities, not found in smallersettlements.

ANCIENT ROME. The rise of the Roman Empire encouragedurban settlement. With much of Europe, North Africa, andSouthwest Asia under Roman rule, settlements were establishedas centers of administrative, military, and other public services,as well as retail and other consumer services. Trade wasencouraged through transportation and utility services, notablyconstruction of many roads and aqueducts, and the security theRoman legions provided.

The city of Rome—the empire’s center for administration,commerce, culture, and all other services—grew to at least250,000 inhabitants, although some claim that the populationmay have reached a million. The city’s centrality in the empire’scommunications network was reflected in the old saying “Allroads lead to Rome” (see Figure 6-9).

With the fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century, urbansettlements declined. Their prosperity had rested on trading inthe secure environment of imperial Rome. But with the empirefragmented under hundreds of rulers, trade diminished. Largeurban settlements shrank or were abandoned. For several hun-dred years Europe’s cultural heritage was preserved largely inmonasteries and isolated rural areas.

Services in Medieval CitiesUrban life began to revive in Europe in the eleventh century asfeudal lords established new urban settlements (Figure 12-7).The lords gave residents charters of rights with which to estab-lish independent cities in exchange for their military service.Both the lord and the urban residents benefited from thisarrangement. The lord obtained people to defend his territoryat less cost than maintaining a standing army. For their part,urban residents preferred periodic military service to the bur-den faced by rural serfs, who farmed the lord’s land and couldkeep only a small portion of their own agricultural output.

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380 The Cultural Landscape

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FIGURE 12-7 Medieval city: Brugge, Belgium. Modern Brugge (Bruges, inFrench) is a town of more than 100,000 in the western part of Belgium, near theNorth Sea coast. Beginning in the twelfth century, Brugge was the most importantport in northwestern Europe and a major center for manufacturing wool. However,three events forced the city’s decline during the fifteenth century: Foreign

in the fifth century B.C. to honor the goddess Athena. The structure to the right ofthe Parthenon in the photograph is the Propylaea, which was the entrance gate tothe Acropolis. Greek fighter helicopters fly over the Acropolis to mark theanniversary of the Greek rebellion against the Ottomans on March 25, 1821.

competitors captured much of the wool industry; the Belgian city of Antwerpendeveloped a better port; and the River Zwin silted, stranding the town 13 kilometers(8 miles) inland from the North Sea. Typical of medieval towns, the center of Bruggeis dominated by squares surrounded by public buildings, churches, and markets.The photo shows the Grote Markt.

Chapter 12: Services 381

With their newly won freedom from the relentless burden ofrural serfdom, the urban dwellers set about expanding trade.Surplus from the countryside was brought into the city for saleor exchange, and markets were expanded through trade withother free cities. The trade among different urban settlementswas enhanced by new roads and more use of rivers. By the four-teenth century, Europe was covered by a dense network ofsmall market towns serving the needs of particular lords.

The largest medieval European urban settlements served aspower centers for the lords and church leaders, as well as majormarket centers. The most important public services occupiedpalaces, churches, and other prominent buildings arrangedaround a central market square. The tallest and most elaboratestructures were usually churches, many of which still dom-inate the landscape of smaller European towns. In medievaltimes, European urban settlements were usually surrounded bywalls even though by then cannonballs could destroy them (Figure 12-8). Dense and compact within the walls, medievalurban settlements lacked space for construction, so ordinaryshops and houses nestled into the side of the walls and thelarge buildings. Most of these modest medieval shops andhomes, as well as the walls, have been demolished in moderntimes, with only the massive churches and palaces surviving.Modern tourists can appreciate the architectural beauty ofthese medieval churches and palaces, but they do not receivean accurate image of a densely built medieval town.

Most of the world’s largest cities were in Asia, not Europe,however, from the collapse of the Roman Empire until the dif-fusion of the Industrial Revolution across Europe during the

nineteenth century. The five most populous cities in 900 arethought to have included Baghdad (in present-day Iraq), Con-stantinople (now called Istanbul, in Turkey), Kyoto (in Japan),and Changan and Hangchow (in China). Beijing (China) com-peted with Constantinople as the world’s most populous city forseveral hundred years, until London claimed the distinction dur-ing the early 1800s. Agra (India), Cairo (Egypt), Canton (China),Isfahan (Iran), and Osaka (Japan) also ranked among the world’smost populous cities prior to the Industrial Revolution.

KEY ISSUE 2

Where AreContemporary Services Located?

■ Services in Rural Settlements■ Services in Urban Settlements

Services are clustered in settlements. Rural settlements arecenters for agriculture and provide a small number of serv-ices; urban settlements are centers for consumer and busi-ness services. One-half of the people in the world currentlylive in a rural settlement, and the other half in an urbansettlement. ■

Services in RuralSettlementsA clustered rural settlement is a placewhere a number of families live in closeproximity to each other, with fieldssurrounding the collection of housesand farm buildings. A dispersed ruralsettlement, typical of the North Ameri-can rural landscape, is characterized byfarmers living on individual farms iso-lated from neighbors rather than along-side other farmers in settlements.

Clustered RuralSettlementsA clustered rural settlement typicallyincludes homes, barns, tool sheds, andother farm structures, plus consumerservices, such as religious structures,schools, and shops. A handful of pub-lic and business services may also bepresent in the clustered rural settle-ment. In common language such a set-tlement is called a hamlet or village.

FIGURE 12-8 Medieval city: Carcassonne, France. Medieval European cities, such as Carcassonne, in southwesternFrance, were often surrounded by walls for protection. The walls have been demolished in most places, but they stillstand around the medieval center of Carcassonne.