Jobs-housing relationships before and amid COVID-19: An excess-commuting approach

The outbreak of COVID-19 and subsequent pandemic containment measures have significantly affected our daily life, which has been extensively examined in the existing scholarship. However, the existing scholarship has done little on the jobs/housing relationship impacts of COVID-19. The authors attempted to fill this gap by looking into this using an excess-commuting approach. The approach allows us to analyse a series of jobs-housing matrices based on the location-based service big data of around fifty million individuals in the Pearl River Delta (PRD), China before and amid COVID-19. In the PRD, a zero-COVID policy was implemented, which presents a distinct and interesting context for their study. They found that after the COVID-19 outbreak: (1) residences and employment became more centrally located in downtowns, which is opposite to the trend of suburbanization elsewhere; (2) in the whole PRD, the minimum and maximum commutes became smaller while the actual commute became larger, indicating the simultaneous presences of some paradoxical phenomena: a better spatial juxtaposition of jobs and housing, more compressed distribution of jobs and housing, and longer average actual commutes; (3) inter-city commutes from and to large cities were significantly confined and decreased, while new inter-city commuters in smaller cities emerged; (4) it is more likely for the less-educated and female workers to observe smaller minimum commutes amid COVID-19. This paper illustrates the potential of big data in the longitudinal study of jobs-housing relationships and excess commuting. It also produces new insights into such relationships in a unique context where stringent anti-COVID-19 policies have been continuously in place.

• Record URL:
  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2022.103507
• Record URL:
  http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0966692322002307
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/09666923
• Supplemental Notes:
  • © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Abstract reprinted with permission of Elsevier.
• Authors:
  • Chen, Ruoyu
  • Zhang, Min
  • Zhou, Jiangping
• Publication Date: 2023-1

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Features: Appendices; Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 103507
• Serial:
  • Journal of Transport Geography
  • Volume: 106
  • Issue Number: 0
  • Publisher: Elsevier
  • ISSN: 0966-6923
  • Serial URL: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jtrangeo

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Commuting; COVID-19; Data analysis; Housing; Jobs; Smart cards
• Geographic Terms: Pearl River Delta
• Subject Areas: Economics; Highways; Public Transportation; Security and Emergencies;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01869376
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Dec 30 2022 4:58PM