ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES

INTRODUCTION
Human desire is to live and enjoy life. Food, shelter and clothing are required for preservation of life, and goods of luxury and comfort for its enjoyment. To provide himself with necessities of life, man is engaged in various occupations. These occupations are called Economic Activities. Some of the occupations or activities like hunting, fishing, farming, grazing, mining, manufacturing, transportation, trade and others form the subject matter of Economic Geography.

LOCATION OF ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES
The economic activities are not located in a void. They occupy space. It is desirable to locate the activity at the most suitable place. The least-cost location i.e., place where the cost of collection and distribution of goods and raw materials etc. is least, is ideal. But political, social, governmental regulations, competition with other economic activities for space and other constraints do not always allow the activity to occupy the ideal location.
Every economic activity enjoys two locations: specific and relative. The specific location is the exact place or the site where the activity is located. The relative location refers to the position of the economic activity in relation to other connected features. The specific location of the main cotton growing region of Punjab is in the Tech and Rachna Doabs (the inter-flure of Jhelum-Chenab and that of Ravi-Chenab respectively). This region is related vertically with fertile alluvial plains, good irrigation facilities and high temperature during growing season. In terms of relative location, it is close to the cotton mills of Faisalabad; and is well-linked with Karachi Port and through that with the world market. Proximity to Faisalabad and linkage with Karachi Port are horizontal relationships.
Similarly, the location of Karachi Port behind Keemari Island and at the head of tidal channel through which ships enter the port is the specific location or site of Karachi Port. Its relative location is brought out by its horizontal relationship with a rich and well-populated hinterland (back country) and with world market by ocean routes.

INTERRELATION OF ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES
The economic activities do not operate in isolation. They are inter-related with one another and with physical and cultural environment. Sometimes they attract each other and sometimes they dispel each other. The sugar mill sits usually in the midst of sugarcane field. Chip board factory is located near a sugar mill. The wholesale center tries to be close to the retail market. The transport repair workshops go together with the transport terminal. The petrol stations are located on roads with vehicular traffic.
On the other hand, rice cultivation is not found in regions of little rainfall and with no irrigation facilities. Obnoxious industries are kept away from residential areas particularly from upper class districts.
Thus the location of every economic activity is subjected to a number of push and pull factors.

LOCATION PATTERN OF ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES
The respective location of economic activities causes the emergence of a spatial (infinite, immeasurable) pattern.
Christaller’s Central Place Theory envisages that in an isotropic surface, the surface areas assume hexagonal pattern.
Von Thunen’s Model of Location of Agricultural Land-use asserts that the spatial pattern of agricultural land-use around a central market is concentric (in the center).

TYPES OF ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES
A useful way to classify the various ways in which goods and services can be produced is to think in terms of a continuum (continuance) from simple to complex. It is convenient to divide the many forms of economic activities into following groups: (Getis 256)

Primary Activities
Primary activities are those which relate to the cultivation of the land and the extraction of minerals and fuels from the rocks. They are at the beginning of production cycle, where humans are in closest contact with the resources and potentialities of the environment. Primary activities include age-old activities, such as hunting animals and gathering wild berries and nuts, grazing, extracting minerals from the earth’s crust, fishing from rivers, lakes and oceans; and the harvesting of trees. Primary producers might be labeled as red-collar workers due to the outdoor nature of their work.

Secondary Activities
These include all forms of manufacturing and processing of raw materials. Secondary activity increases the value or usefulness of a previously existing item by changing its form. Such activities include manufacturing and commercial agriculture. The farmer, for instance, apply hybrid seeds, fertilizers and modern technology in the form of cultivating and harvesting equipment to increase the yield of the crops. Steel makers turn iron into a more durable metal in blast furnaces and steel mills. Lumber mills process products of primary activities i.e. logs, processing them into boards, plywood, or prefabricated houses by a secondary activity that increases their value by altering their form. We often think of this group collectively as the blue-collar labor force.

Tertiary Activities
Tertiary activities consist of those business and labor specializations that provide services to the primary and secondary sectors, to the general community, and to the individual. These include financial, business, professional, clerical and personal services. They constitute the vital link between producer and consumer, for tertiary occupations importantly include the wholesale and retail trade activities necessary in highly interdependent societies. Tertiary activities also provide essential information to manufacturers: the knowledge of market demand without which economically justifiable production decisions are impossible. This group is categorized as pink-collar workers.

Quaternary Activities
In economically advanced societies many individuals and some entire organizations are engaged in the processing and dissemination of information and in the administration and control of their own or other enterprises. The term quaternary is applied to this forth class of economic activities which is composed entirely of services rendered by white-collar professionals working in education, government, management, information processing, research and entertainment. Specialized technical, communication, and/or motivation and leadership skills provide the common thread linking these activities. Practically all quaternary activities occur in office building environments and in specialized environments provided by schools, theaters, hotels and hospitals.

Quinary Activities
Sometimes, a subdivision of these management functions – quinary activities – is distinguished to recognize high level decision making roles in all types of large organizations, public and private. Transportation and communication services and facilities cut across the general categories of the economic activity, unite them, and make possible the spatial interactions that all human enterprise requires.
The most visible persons in this group include chief executive officers and other top management executives in both government and private sectors / service. Research scientists, legal authorities, financial advisors, and professional consultants who provide strategic planning and problem-solving services belong to this cluster. Most of these high-order analytical and managerial activities occur in large urban centers or in close proximity to large university, medical, and/or research centers. New York, London and Tokyo, for example, being the primary world financial centers, possess a large number of specialized banking and other financial executives, giving them a very large cadre (force, staff) of quinary workers. An appropriate label for this group is the gold-collar worker.

IMPORTANCE
The importance of such demarcation lines lies in the practice of grouping the working population according to the kinds of activities in which they are engaged, and hence categorizing and comparing cities, towns and even countries. For example, in some towns the primary activity of mining is the dominant occupation; in others, the secondary activities like car manufacturing are dominant. Yet others are dominated by service activities; dock towns like Harwich, for example, and business centers like the city of London.
We can draw similar distinctions between countries. Primary activities – chiefly agriculture – predominate in the countries of the developing world. The industrialized countries have, by definition, a high proportion of their population in secondary activities; and the richest countries, the USA, Switzerland, and Sweden, for example, have large quinary sectors.

INCOME DISTRIBUTION
As a general rule, primary activities are rewarded by lower incomes and command a lower standard of living than secondary, and secondary occupations are generally less well-rewarded than tertiary. There are of course exceptions: the miner and oil workers are rising in the scale of remuneration, and some are very highly paid. Nevertheless, industrialization and expansion of the secondary sector are seen in the third world countries as the most important – indeed as the only – step towards higher income levels.

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