Urban Sprawl and the Downtown Workforce
Urban sprawl spreads out job locations
By LAURIE WINSLOW World Staff Writer
Published: 4/6/2009 4:23 PM
Last Modified: 4/6/2009 4:23 PM
Like most major metro areas in the country, both the Tulsa and Oklahoma City areas saw a drop in the share of jobs located downtown between 1998 and 2006, according to a report released Monday by the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.
The report — “Job Sprawl Revisited: The Changing Geography of Metropolitan Employment” — analyzes trends in location of jobs in metro regions, both large and small.
According to the report, job sprawl has increased as almost every major American metro area since 1998 has seen employment move away from downtown areas and into farther-out suburbs.
Only 21 percent of employees in the top 98 metro areas work within three miles of downtown, while 45 percent work more than 10 miles away from the city center. More than half of the metro areas in the study experienced “rapid decentralization,” including the Oklahoma City area, which is included among the study’s small metro areas that have anywhere from 165,000 to 500,000 jobs.
The Tulsa area, which also is listed as a small metro area, was among 30 places that experienced moderate decentralization.
According to the study, the Tulsa area had 372,840 jobs within 35 miles of downtown in 2006. That represented an increase of 19,807 jobs from 1998.
Whereas 19.1 percent of Tulsa’s jobs were located within the urban core, or within three miles of downtown, 26.7 percent of Oklahoma City’s fell within that same range in 2006.
Tulsa’s share of jobs located beyond 10 miles of downtown rose from 19.4 percent in 1998 to 23.1 percent in
2006. The metro area’s share of jobs located three to 10 miles from downtown also rose during that same time, from 55.9 percent to 57.7 percent.
The Oklahoma City also area saw its share of jobs located beyond 10 miles from downtown increase 4.6 percent within that time. Its share of jobs within three miles of downtown shrunk 4.1 percent.
The shift of jobs from a city’s inner core to outerlying areas raises questions and can have implications for a range of policy areas, said Elizabeth Kneebone, author of the report and senior research analyst at the Metropolitan Policy Program, in a phone interview.
She noted that the trend toward decentralization among the metro areas featured in the study occurred during different points of the economic cycle.
“It also happened in areas that were growing as well as areas that were losing jobs. … While the recession that we’re in at the moment might slow some of the trend, without policy intervention these trends are likely to persist,” Kneebone said. “Once the economy has started growing again, policy makers and local leadership should be asking questions about where the jobs are going to be added.”
The job shift raises questions about housing options where jobs are being added, she said, such as whether housing is available and affordable.
Adequate public transportation also is a factor where workers are having to commute long distances.
“If not, what does that mean for traffic and congestion and emission. That can impact the size of a metro area’s carbon footprint,” Kneebone said.
“Moving forward, the way to shape these trends or help to reverse them is to encourage more compact form of development that integrates housing and transportation and economic development, so that you can avoid these challenges,” she added.
Decentralization of employment also reduces innovation by lessening opportunities for companies to interact and exchange ideas. It also can isolate low-income and minority workers in the urban center from job opportunities in outlying areas, according to the report.
By LAURIE WINSLOW World Staff Writer
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For me, she lost credibility when she printed the words “carbon footprint.”