Those economic activities (also called tertiary industry) concerned with the distribution and consumption of goods and services. Proximity to clients is the major locational factor. Other factors promoting the clustering of service firms and workplaces are: agglomeration economies, supply of infrastructure, supply of labour, and new firm formations.

Some services—particularly less specialized household services—are fairly evenly located in relation to settlement patterns. Those less evenly located include specialized household services, central government functions, and professional or business services, which concentrate in major city regions, or within regional clusters. With information and communication technology, service activities can decentralize from urban cores to the suburbs, and to more peripheral sites, both nationally and internationally (Hermelin and Rusten (2007) Geografiska B 89, 1).