Spatial Characteristics: A Planners View of Locational Pattern and Underlying Factors among Small Scale Industries in Ondo State of Nigeria

Abstract

This study investigated the locational pattern and the factors among small scale industries (SSI) in Ondo state of Nigeria. Three hundred and fifty three (353) enterprises were sampled across the nine selected settlements spread across the three senatorial regions of the state. The study made use of quadrant count analysis to investigate the distributional pattern, t-test to compare the distributional pattern among formal and informal small scale industries and factor analysis to isolate major locational factors. The study established that there existed significant difference in the distributional patterns of small scale enterprises in the sampled settlements. For example, while 40% of the sampled industries were located in Ondo Central, 31% were in Ondo South, while 28% were in Ondo North. Moreover, 82% of the industries were concentrated in the major urban areas of Akure, Ikare and Okitipupa, with the minor urban areas of Ode Aye, Ugbe and Obaile accounted for 11.3%, while the villages of Iboropa, Aponmu and Ikoya were almost insignificant with 5.9%. The study further established that the distributional pattern of SSI in Ondo North was regular (Iboropa V.M.R 0.15, Ikare, V.M.R 0.41, and Ugbe V.M.R 0.32), in Ondo Central, the SSI did not show regular pattern, here while some were regular (Obaile V.M.R 0.32) Some exhibited random pattern (Aponmu V.M.R 0.91) and Akure clearly showed clustered pattern (V.M.R 1.30). In Ondo South, the tendency was regular distribution, Ikoya and Ode Aye being Regular (V.M.R 0.27, V.M.R 0.81) while Okitipupa was clustered (V.M.R 1.70). An application of Anova revealed that there is no significant uniformity in V.M.R values of all the 9 settlements, since the calculated F ratio (1.0494) was less than the tabulated F ratio (5.14).Yet an application of factor analysis revealed that access to labour, power and proprietors personal preferences (0.77, 0.72,and,0.57 loadings) were major factors of location.

Key Words: Small scale industries, Distributional pattern, Locational factors, Agglomeration, Proprietors