The Changing Spatial Relationship Between Residences and Worksites in the New York Metropolitan Region: Implications for Public Policy

In recent decades, most new metropolitan population and job growth has occurred in the suburbs. Conventional wisdom suggests that because of the selective nature of suburban labor market development, most metropolitan workers currently live further from their jobs. Distance, in turn, fragments urban labor markets and creates physical and informational barriers to employment.
This article examines the selective pattern of central city-suburban labor market development within the New York Metropolitan Region between 1960 and 1975 and analyzes the extent to which worker residences have adapted to spatial shifts in employment.