Article Review，How to Write a Substantive Review of any Article

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Title: Why High technology firms choose to locate in or near metropolitan areas?

Reference: Grenkel.A (2001). Why High technology firms choose to locate in or near metropolitan areas. Urban studies. 38 (7):1083-1101.

Introduction( Give an Introduction/importance of the article)

This is a very attention-grabbing article by Amnon Frenkel who is working in the center for Urban and regional studies, Technion, Israel institute of technology, Israel. This article is well organized into major sections and subsections with tables and map which help in understanding the study in much detail. The main focus of the article is very well clear from the title as it says “Why High Technology firms choose to locate in or near metropolitan areas”. It is case study in which the author questions and reveals that what are the major determinants of any high tech firm when it comes to decide on its location and he takes a case study of Haifa metropolitan area and its surrounding (northern region of Israel).

Importance of the subject

Today in the highly urbanizing, industrializing and the rising high tech world one really needs to understand that why and where are the hot spots of high tech firms and where one should locate in future. It reveals the pattern behind it and if it is an ideal location and does it leads to further inter and intra state disparities. I find this theme to be the need of the hour in today’s developmental world.

Summary (Summarize the main meat of an article)

This article presents the results of an empirical study of the locational choice of Israeli hi- tech (HT) industries within a metropolitan area. His article is based on the hypothesis which he takes out from the literature review. He does an excellent literature review which reveals the major factors of a high tech location and then verifies it in Haifa metropolitan areas and using excellent research methods. His is both qualitative and quantitative research.

Critique( strengths and weaknesses)

The first most interesting issue which impressed me at first glance was the title which was very attention grabbing to anyone who is interested in High technology and its location and understanding the why’s how’s and where’s. Secondly the author in his article really grabs the attention of the reader and explains clearly and comprehensively the purpose of the study, detailed and excellent literature review, clearly stated hypothesis, methods involved, study areas, results, findings and thorough conclusion. Overall the article was extremely organized. I believe this article becomes a very important article for anyone doing research on High technology and its location and impacts. But one issue which grabs my attention is that it is an interesting article but the author has just taken his hypothesis from the literature review and becomes a very basic study. I think it could be more elucidated and enlightened by adding some GIS and some sophisticated Geo spatial methods and techniques where the results could have also been even more fascinating. He has also not taken the cultural values, language, religion and the gender issues and also which are very important in today’s modern world. The study also doesn’t have enough of maps which make the descriptive study more visually attractive.

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Conclusion

Finally I would like to conclude that unquestionably it is a must article for anyone doing research on High technology and understanding the location factors and any other issues related with it. The conceptual framework/literature review is very comprehensive and covers major and most influential research work which no doubt makes it very valuable.