Title: Spatial Mismatch or Automobile Mismatch? An Examination of Race, Residence and Commuting in US Metropolitan Areas

Title
Cars Not Geography: Job Accessibility and Reconceptualizing Spatial Mismatch in Detroit

Author Joe Grengs

Abstract

Transportation scholars are challenging traditional formulations of the spatial mismatch hypothesis because it disregards the considerable difference between travel modes. This case study of the Detroit metropolitan region uses 2000 census data and a gravity-based model of transportation accessibility to test differences in jobs access among places and people, and provides support for recent calls for reconceptualizing spatial mismatch. It shows that even though Detroit experiences the greatest distance between blacks and jobs of any region in the country, most central-city neighborhoods offer an advantage in accessibility to jobs compared to most other places in the metropolitan region - as long as a resident has a car. Policies aimed at helping carless people gain access to automobiles may be an effective means of improving the employment outcomes of inner-city residents.

Time To Work: Job Search Strategies and Commute Time for Women on Welfare in San Francisco

Karen Chapple
University of Minnesota

The major policy approaches to welfare-to-work attempt to facilitate the transition into the workforce by providing job search assistance and transportation subsidies. Although these policies help some women on welfare, they fail to respond to the needs of most, who rely disproportionately on social contacts to find jobs, seek to minimize commutes, and lack the educational attainment that would help them penetrate the regional labor market. This article uses in-depth interviews with 92 women on welfare in San Francisco, as well as a binomial logit model, to examine the relationship between job search strategies and employment characteristics. The findings suggest that low-income women with children are more likely to rely on contacts than women without children, because they seek to work close to home. For most women, building connections to employers, improving human capital, and increasing the density of neighborhood economic and social activity will make jobs more accessible.

Michael Batty

Geographic information systems (GIS) are becoming widespread in management and planning, affecting the very organization and operation of the planning process itself. In this paper we address the problems and potential of such systems, particularly in relation to the analytical, predictive, and prescriptive models on which strategic planning processes are based. Current GIS are not rooted in the sorts of functions which drive these processes and here we will identify the difficulties and possibilities for developing more appropriate GIS which are sensitive to the simulation, optimization, and design activities which define spatial planning. To this end we will describe the development of planning support systems (PSS) in which a wide array of data, information, and knowledge might be structured, and within which GIS develop ment must take place. We will identify the sorts of urban system and locational models which characterize strategic planning and whose data-demands might be accommodated using GIS. Our critique of GIS is positive and constructive in that we are concerned to embed GIS into planning processes in the most appropriate way. In conclusion we will identify a series of requirements which PSS must meet.

UCLA's Ralph and Goldy Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies

Douglas Miller

Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University

This article compares the impacts of spatial mismatch (the geographic separation of workers and jobs) and transportation mismatch (the lack of access to a private automobile) on neighborhood employment-to-population ratios and unemployment rates. The study uses tract-level data for the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The analysis uses an instrumental-variable approach to correct for the simultaneity of employment and car ownership. Results indicate that transportation mismatch is the more important factor in generating poor labor-market outcomes, particularly for disadvantaged neighborhoods. Areas with relatively more jobs increase female employment rates but not male employment rates. On the other hand, lower car ownership rates significantly decrease the employment ratio and increase the unemployment rate for both sexes.

Key Words: employment • unemployment • poor neighborhoods

Abstract (Document Summary)

Since the 1960s, John Kain's theory of spatial mismatch has influenced policy responses to the poor employment prospects of low-income and minority residents of inner cities by aiming to connect them with suburban jobs. My literature review examines this policy legacy using what we now know about disadvantaged jobseekers' employment searches. Recent evaluations of poverty deconcentration and employment accessibility programs show that these programs have failed to improve employment outcomes significantly. However, using evidence from studies of job search and job training programs, I show that local activity patterns do shape employment chances. Planners trying to improve employment outcomes for the disadvantaged should focus on policies that will provide them with opportunities to interact with a diverse social network and meet workforce intermediaries capable of linking them with jobs.

Abstract (Document Summary)-
Through estimation of a discrete choice model of residential location, this study argues that commute time remains a dominant determinant of residential location at the regional scale, and that provision of affordable housing near employment concentrations can influence residential location decisions for low-to-moderate-income, single-worker households. However, the significance of jobs-hunting balance is not in reducing congestion; even when successful, such policies will have little impact on average travel speeds. Rather, the relaxation of suburban regulation that could lead to improved matches between home and workplace is seen as enhancing the range of households' choices about residence and transportation.