DECENTRALIZATION OF JOBS AND EMERGING SUBURBAN COMMUTE

Large-scale suburbanization of employment has dramatically changed transportation and land use planning. Intersuburban commuting now dominates regional highway networks, and the automobile has replaced mass transit for many commutes. A study was undertaken to examine one aspect of the debate on the effects of employment decentralization on regional mobility: the impact of growing suburban employment on the commutes of people from various income groups. The study suggests that suburban employment centers with high levels of multifamily housing will exhibit commute patterns in which household income and commute distance are largely independent. In contrast, in suburban areas in which the development of dense housing has not kept pace with employment growth, it is hypothesized that new commute patterns are emerging wherein lower-income households commute greater distances than their upper-income counterparts. This pattern would reverse the prediction of monocentric urban models for central city employment. These hypotheses are tested for San Francisco Bay Area communities using data from 1981 and 1989. Bivariate analyses generally supported the predicted effects of community employment base and housing stock on commute patterns by income. Nested logit models of the household residential location decision were estimated for workers in San Ramon and in northern Santa Clara County on the basis of 1989 data. The models appeared to demonstrate a positive effect of the availability of multifamily housing on the residential location decisions of low- to moderate-income households. Forecasts of commute patterns using the estimated models indicated a potential for reducing long-distance commutes by low- to moderate-income households through a policy encouraging multifamily housing construction in the vicinity of suburban employment centers.

• Record URL:
  http://onlinepubs.trb.org/Onlinepubs/trr/1992/1364/1364-009.pdf
• Record URL:
  https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=DECENTRALIZATION+OF+JOBS+AND+EMERGING+SUBURBAN+COMMUTE&author=J.+Levine&publication_year=1992
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/isbn/0309054036
• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper appears in Transportation Research Record No. 1364, Transportation Planning, Programming, Land Use, and Applications of Geographic Information Systems. Distribution, posting, or copying of this PDF is strictly prohibited without written permission of the Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences. Unless otherwise indicated, all materials in this PDF are copyrighted by the National Academy of Sciences. Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved
• Authors:
  • Levine, Jonathan C
• Publication Date: 1992

Language

• English

Media Info

• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: p. 71-80
• Monograph Title: Transportation planning, programming, land use, and applications of geographic information systems
• Serial:
  • Transportation Research Record
  • Issue Number: 1364
  • Publisher: Transportation Research Board
  • ISSN: 0361-1981

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Apartment buildings; Commuting; Decentralization; Dwellings; Employment; Forecasting; Hypothesis testing; Income; Logits; Mobility; Residential location; Suburbs; Transportation policy; Travel patterns; Trip length
• Uncontrolled Terms: Bivariate analysis; Hypothesis
• Geographic Terms: San Francisco Bay Area
• Old TRIS Terms: Multifamily housing
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Policy; Public Transportation; Terminals and Facilities; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00626923
• Record Type: Publication
• ISBN: 0309054036
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Feb 23 1993 12:00AM