Alan Berube and Natalie Holmes
Brookings Institution
Purpose of this study
• Job locations are shifting within metro areas
• Low-income and minority populations are
suburbanizing
• How have these dynamics changed peoples’
proximity to jobs?
• Proximity matters for employment outcomes,
access to services, local fiscal health
1
Methods
2
Findings
3
Implications
4
Tools and Next Steps
1 Methods
Measuring “nearby” jobs
NEARBY JOBS are those located within a
typical commute distance of a given
census tract (roughly analogous to a
neighborhood)
TYPICAL COMMUTE is the median “as
the crow flies” distance traveled by
people living and working in the same
metro area
AVERAGE NEARBY JOBS, our key metric,
is the average number of nearby jobs. We
also present averages for different types
of residents and neighborhoods.
Source: Brookings Institution analysis of Census 2000 data
2 Findings
Between 2000 and 2012, the number of jobs near the typical
resident fell
Source: Brookings Institution analysis of Census 2000 data
In most major metro areas, the number of jobs near the average
resident shrank in the 2000s
Source: Brookings Institution analysis of Census 2000 data
The number of jobs near the typical suburban resident fell more than
twice as fast as compared to the typical city resident
627,212
605,367
2000
2012
-3.5%
223,365
207,158
-7.3%
City
Source: Brookings Institution analysis of Census 2000 data
Suburb
Proximity to jobs is better where job density is higher
Source: Brookings Institution analysis of Census 2000 data
In many regions, some suburbs gained nearby jobs while others lost
nearby jobs
Source: Brookings Institution analysis of Census 2000 data
The number of high-poverty and majority-minority neighborhoods
climbed in the 2000s, especially in the suburbs
High-Poverty Neighborhoods
2000
2012
7,674
Majority-Minority Neighborhoods
9,161
8,167
8,111
6,054
5,525
5,539
2,616
City
Suburbs
Source: Brookings Institution analysis of Census 2000 data
City
Suburbs
These neighborhoods experienced particularly pronounced declines
in the number of nearby jobs
High-Poverty Neighborhoods
Majority-Minority Neighborhoods
738,103
755,897
2000
2012
647,894
664,876
-9.9%
-14.3%
292,808
242,911
-15.8%
-17.0%
City
Suburbs
Source: Brookings Institution analysis of Census 2000 data
376,490
316,962
City
Suburbs
3 Implications
These findings demonstrate that…
1. Labor markets are regional but
economic opportunity is often dictated
by local conditions
2. Strategies to connect low-income and
minority residents to economic
opportunity must take into account the
growing suburbanization of these
populations
3. Achieving regional growth that is shared
across places and diverse populations
will require collaborative solutions
Source: Brookings Institution analysis of Census 2000 data
4 Tools and Next Steps
Future research topics
• The types of jobs near different communities
and residents (by wage level, education
requirements, and industry)
• Commuting patterns within regions
• The distribution of affordable housing
aberube@brookings.edu
nholmes@brookings.edu
www.ConfrontingSuburbanPoverty.org