The Location of Employment in Large Urban Areas, 2002 and 2010

Abstract

Data from the Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics program are used to study the location of employment in 59 large urban areas. The location of employment in 2010, the relationship to the location of the population, and change from 2002 to 2010 are examined using three measures - the percent of urban area employment within a limited distance from the center, the percent of employment within the older urban core, and an index of centralization measuring the overall distribution of employment taking into account the mean distance jobs are located from the center. For all but 5 of the urban areas, the majority of jobs were not located in the urban core but in the newer suburban periphery. On average only about 20 percent of all employment is located close to the central business district. Perhaps most striking is the very large variation in the measures of employment location across the urban areas.