# Logistics Space: A Literature Review from the Sustainability Perspective
## 2 Logistics Space
### The Activities of Logistics Space  
#### 2.3.1 Logistics Sprawl  
With the suburbanization of cities and population, the logistics sprawl gradually appears in the urban development of various countries. Logistics sprawl, the spatial deconcentration of logistics facilities and distribution centers [49], is the trend of outward movement of logistics facilities from inner urban areas to suburban and curban areas. \"Logistics polarization\" and \"logistics suburbanization\" are also used to describe the phenomenon of logistics facilities from the inner city to the suburbs [50]. Land cost is the most important factor contributing to the location of logistics facilities [29]. Logistics land-use spatial structure and the mechanism of its evolution have always been the key issues for logistics land use and logistics sprawl. Numerous studies of logistics land-use spatial structure involve geography, economics, sociology, and other fields. The next most important factor is traffic accessibility. Logistics facilities are located closer to highways and other transport infrastructure compared to other sectors. In inner urban areas, traffic is congested, and logistics facilities are also locating increasingly in suburban locations [11]. The suburbs provide cheaper industrial land and easier access to road, rail as well as air transport for logistics facilities. Those factors have led to the movement of logistics facilities away from urban centers and a large number of studies of logistics sprawl have verified the movement (e.g., Gothenburg, Atlanta, Zurich, Los Angeles, and Tokyo).  
Most researches judge the logistics sprawl by the change in the average distance of logistics facilities from the urban center. Table 1 shows the increased distance in Gothenburg, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Zurich and Toronto respectively [5; 6; 7; 8; 10; 19; 51]. However, the increase in distance does not justify logistics sprawl as the entire city is expanding. So, [PERSON] and [PERSON] compared the changes in the average distance of logistics facilities against that of business establishments (4.5 km versus 2.1 km), they called \"relative (logistics) sprawl\". [PERSON] also finds that the average distance of the logistics facilities from the urban center has increased considerably more than that of the population (2.4 km versus 0.4 km). [PERSON] finds logistics facilities in Los Angeles and San Francisco shift to places with low employment density [10]. [PERSON] divides Toronto into three areas: The Greater Toronto Area (GTA), the Greater Golden Horseshoe (GGH) and Southern Ontario (S.ON). He compares the movement of warehouses with all businesses and finds that warehouses are not only sprawling within the core urban area, but also the curban area that includes satellite communities within the economic sphere of the city [19]. Comparing the sprawl patterns of warehouses with all businesses is useful to determine whether warehouses are sprawling at the same rate as the urban area. The other method to determine logistics sprawl is analyzing the number or density of logistics facilities. [PERSON] finds that the number of warehousing establishments grew faster in the suburban counties than that in the central counterparts by analyzing the locations of warehousing establishments of the fifty largest metropolitan areas in the US during 1986-2005 [52]. The warehouse as a place to store goods, which is the largest demand for land in all logistics activities, and warehousing sprawl is more obvious than that of other logistics activities [7]. This is why many studies have used storage facilities as research objects. [PERSON] compares the Paris region of France with the Randstad area of Dutch and analyzes the differences in the distribution of logistics between monocentric region and polycentric region, and finds that the urban structure affects the logistics sprawl [50].