Chathura Kovida De Silva, Liao Jingying, Yang Ningxi

Keywords： Morphological Typology; Amazon; E-commerce Logistics; Development of Logistics Facilities; Spatial Mode; Land Use

Abstract：

Recent years have witnessed the rapid growth of e-commerce logistics and warehouses. This growth shifted the warehouses to future retail and direct-to-client fulfillment centers along the supply chain and significantly impacted regional and urban development. Although many studies have examined the spatial effects of e-commerce logistics networks at state and regional scales, few were at the micro-scale. To fill this gap, with the case of Amazon, the largest e-commerce giant globally, this paper aims to reveal how e-commerce fulfillment centers interact with local land use. With the image data of Google Earth satellite images and Google Street View, the morphological typology approach was employed to investigate the land use pattern transformation before and after the investment of Amazon logistics projects. The neighborhood units with a one km radius and a center of each Amazon logistics center were used as the primary research unit. In total, 348 projects from nine countries were analyzed in this research. The results show that 48% of amazon facilities were situated in logistics clusters, while 3%、17% and 32% were respectively located in high-density、mid-density and low-density areas. There were 82% of the local clusters where the Amazon led the development of the surrounding areas to drive the development of these areas, and 18% were redeveloped after demolishing old buildings. Analyzing the impacts of logistics facility development on neighborhood land use could benefit making appropriate logistics planning and policy implementation.

Funds：

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