Rethinking the Geography of Housing & Job Access

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Abstract

Job access—specifically geographic proximity to employment options—is an important dimension for understanding employment outcomes and mobility. It affects one’s likelihood of employment, hours worked, rate of pay and earnings, and the childcare or transportation costs of going to work. Evidence also suggests job proximity is particularly important for lower-income workers who face more constraints in terms of where they can afford to live and how much they can spend on commuting.

Research in the 1980s and 90s on job access and commuting patterns focused on a particular form of spatial mismatch, where a gap in job access existed between residents of job-rich suburban areas and residents in central cities where there were comparatively fewer jobs. However, in more recent years, there is evidence of broader shifts in metropolitan areas that may affect job access, especially for lower-income workers. For one, the geography of economic prosperity and the spatial distribution of poverty has shifted: even as communities across the country continue to grapple with persistent poverty, the spread of poverty into more communities—including suburbs and smaller metropolitan areas—has changed the map of economic advantage/disadvantage. At the same time, there have also been numerous labor market developments over the past decade that may have affected job access. For example, amid the turbulence of the COVID-19 recession, the pandemic also accelerated the rising trend of remote work, at least for some types of workers.

Given these demographic and labor market shifts, there is ample reason to reexamine patterns of job accessibility and explore how any changes might affect a range of workforce, housing, transportation, and human service responses aimed at helping lower-income households improve their access to economic and social mobility. In this session, participants will draw on their range of expertise—from recent and evolving research to practical policy applications—to engage in an interactive discussion that will explore questions such as:

• ·        In the current economy, in what ways and for whom does proximity to employment still matter for increasing access to economic opportunity?


• ·         How has the geography of job access shifted in recent years? Where and for whom has it worsened and what does that reflect about larger scale shifts in access to opportunity/areas of prosperity?


• ·         What do recent trends suggest about the ways in which housing, transportation, human services, workforce, or economic development might play a role in shaping or responding to these patterns of access (or lack thereof)?


• ·         In what other ways are housing and labor markets evolving to affect job access for lower-income workers and communities?


• ·         What strategies are communities using to address challenges in connecting lower-income workers to economic opportunity? What lessons could be learned from those efforts?

Participants

Natalie Holmes, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco

Kenan Fikri, Economic Innovation Group

Girmay Zahilay, King County Councilmember

Policy Area

• Housing, Community Development, and Urban Policy

Secondary Policy Area

• Employment and Training Programs

Moderator

• Scott Allard, University of Washington

Organizer

• Scott Allard, University of Washington

Speakers

• Kenan Fikri, Economic Innovation Group

• Natalie Holmes, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco