All problems related to urban land use are of great interest not only to geographers but to all those scholars who are interested in studying the spatial organization of economic activities within the city. The study of industrial location, however, has been traditionally awarded a low priority in spatial research, which has tended to emphasize the locational characteristics of other economic activities which take place in the city. Based on a brief review of the literature on industrial location, the present study tries to identify some general principles which govern the location of secondary sector activities in the city through time. These principles are then tested for their relevancy in the context of downtown Niterói, the second most important município of the Rio de Janeiro Metropolitan Region.