Amazon the rural shopping center—from a temporary business model to a spatial impact : a backstage landscape

Abstract

The distribution of goods in the world of Amazon is well known through their “1 click-order”. The reason, why more and more shops in this areas shut down. The today's market square is virtual and only one click away. Delivered the next day by DHL or UPS. This project will focus on a side effect of this system. In november and december 2012 during Christmas shopping the distribution centers have to be enormously enlarged with labor. For the hub in Graben around 3500 extra workers are needed for a period of 6 weeks. All of them are temporary workers, mostly students from all over the world, which come to Germany during this time. With this research the side effect of the organization system of a logistic hub will be shown. The transfer of people will be mapped and the impact on the rural places will be shown. They create a new type of landscape, called backstage landscape.