Introduction
According to Gross (1995, 1), urban economies have shifted from producing goods to producing services and this situation has been on for quite a long time. Urban Economies have all through been on the journey to producing services as opposed to goods. The argument is that the service producers in the urban economies have been increasing for almost the last three decades. This has caused services production to be more predominant in the urban economies. This has been necessitated by the ever-increasing for services in the urban economies. Consumers for services have increased enormously for the past decades. Health services production has been identified as the rapidly growing sector in these economies. People need health services on daily basis or more regularly. This has attracted many health services providers to trickle into the urban areas.
Main body
Urban economies are highly populated than the rural areas and are mostly dominated by the working class and learned people. They are therefore more concerned about their health and seek health services regularly. Gross observed the recent growth in metropolitan Dallas and found that the increasing services production in the urban economies is playing a vital role in the economic growth through the provision of employment and as a source of income. The challenge posed by this trend is the concentration of health care occupation specialization in the metropolitan core which might be healthy for the economy. He also observed that the export of health services is much higher in the smaller metropolitan than it is in the larger metropolitans. Smaller metropolitan are devoted to offering high volume basic care to the people around them. Larger metropolitans are limited to specialty care and therefore they cover only a small portion of the markets.
The argument of Gross is logical in a sense because the influx of people in the urban economies has increased over time. This has caused the demand for services to be higher than in other areas. People in the urban economies are more knowledgeable and they are more concerned about the services that will improve their health. For example, health services production has increased greatly. The health service providers have also concentrated in the urban economies where they can fetch a bigger market for their products. The environment in the urban economies could also have contributed to the increasing production of health services. The accessibility of facilities used in the production of services like health care is highly available in the urban economies. For instance, the infrastructures are more enhanced in the urban economies than in the rural areas. The presence of better roads, electricity, training institutions et cetera in the urban cities greatly improves the provision of services.
Conclusion
In a higher sense, however, the production of service production may have increased at the same pace as the production of goods. People cannot live on services alone. There must be the production of goods and services to make life more comfortable. Production of goods has also increased in the urban economies. An increase in the population of people in the urban economies attracts both the production of goods and services but it cannot be denied that the production of services is increasing at an alarming rate. The rate of increase in the production of goods may be slower than that of services making the urban economies seem to be shifting to the production of services.
Reference List
Gross, H. T. (2009).The Role of Health Services in Metropolitan and Central City Economic Development: The Example of Dallas. North Texas: University of Texas.