Criteria for the location of Federal regional facilities

Guidelines for use in selecting locations for federal regional facilities The study deals particularly with the increases in system cost attributable to establishing a regional facility in a designated economic redevelopment area rather than at the most efficient location in terms of office administration. As a case study, the criteria developed are applied to the location patterns of the Small Business Administration. Fairly well structured quantitative relationships should be developed in the following areas: costs of facility operations as a function of travel and access requirements, local office space costs, and local labor costs; measures of the consequences of increments to the local economic base as a function of local economic structure; and the evaluation of impact benefits as a function of the policy-maker's objectives. In the example chosen for detailed analysis, the Pacific Coastal Area, the Small Business Administration has made a reasonable choice of field headquarters location on cost-effective grounds; regional facilities such as these, however, could make a significant contribution to economic advance in depressed areas without substantially affecting agency costs.