Job-Worker Balance and Polycentric Transit-Oriented Development

Abstract

The spatial distribution of resources in cities has a significant direct influence on how well both firms and households can access needed resources, which include not just raw materials, housing, food, and water, but also the need for firms to access a regional labor market and workers to access locations of employment. This dissertation aims to further the literature on theory and empirical evidence geared towards increasing access to employment across regions. A formalized theory of Job-Worker Balance (JWB) provides an accessibility-based variant of the jobs-housing balance ratio (JHB), a balanced count of housing and jobs within some zone, such as a county or city. The JWB evaluates the accessibility of workers to relevant employment within a distance from home that reduces the burden of commuting. That distance comprises an optimal zone within which “internal capture” of workers’ commutes may occur. That is, the origin and destination of work trips are captured within the zone, and the zone constitutes an optimized commuting context. Further, internal capture results in short and low-cost commutes. Two related theories are incorporated in the JWB theory. Advocates of transit-oriented development (TOD) assert that it can increase employment access and lower transport costs. The study considers the relative effectiveness of TOD at improving workers’ access to jobs, and the dynamics in firms’ access to their needed workforce. TODs are two things at once: nodes on a transportation network and also centers of land use concentration. They are inherently centers of economic and social activity that concentrate these societal functions at a higher rate of density and land use mix than found in their surroundings. Further, TOD is enhanced by polycentric development theory, which posits that it can enhance the workforce’s access to locations of employment across an entire region by providing more central places where access to local and regional linkages is highest. Quantitative spatial and temporal analysis using new methods and theories that add to the robustness of the research is applied to regions across the United States. The study also analyzes demographics, regional development patterns and urban form. Findings of the study indicate that the theoretical attributes of a JWB exist in various degrees of prominence and relevance across regions; they are not structurally uniform across all areas. It also finds that short commutes are not always associated with jobs-housing balance; there is a spatial non-stationarity to the association. This indicates a need to revise the jobs-housing balance. As expected, internal capture is generally positively associated with the jobs-labor balance ratio and income match in places of higher land use mix, centering and intensity that are connected to the regional transit network. Also, workers in higher wage classifications or in certain job sectors are found to enjoy higher rates of internal capture. Economic effects of segregation remain influential in redlined districts.