People who live in cities are facing ever-longer commutes to work. The pool of jobs that were within the typical commuting distance in the country’s biggest metropolitan areas shrank by 7 percent between 2000 and 2012, a new report finds.
For a report released on Tuesday by the Brookings Institution based on Census Bureau data, researchers found that between 2000 and 2012, working became more inconvenient for people in almost every large metropolitan area in the U.S. Suburbanites saw nearby jobs shrink more than twice as much as city residents did (for the report, the researchers examined how many jobs in each metro area were located within the typical commuting distance for workers in that area).
Poor people and minorities found themselves living farther from job opportunities than middle-class and white residents: Jobs within a reasonable commute fell 14 percent and 17 percent for black and Hispanic people, respectively, compared with 6 percent for white people. Poor people saw close-proximity jobs shrink 17 percent; for non-poor people, the decline was 6 percent.
People living near Ohio’s Cleveland-Elyria metropolitan area and Michigan’s Detroit-Warren-Dearborn metropolitan area were hardest hit: The number of jobs within commuting distance dropped about 26.5 percent for both areas between 2000 and 2012. Texas’s McAllen-Edinburg-Mission metropolitan area added the most commuter-friendly jobs. The number of jobs near the average resident in the three cities grew 60.7 percent between 2000 and 2012.
Brookings Institution
Cleveland and Detroit lost the highest share of jobs within commuting distance between 2000 and 2012, while McAllen, Texas, led in adding jobs near metro residents over the same period.
Even though there are now slightly more jobs in America’s big cities than before the recession, the data show the gains have been uneven. That’s concerning, partly because commutes can have a significant effect on the likelihood of people successfully finding a job. “When people live near their jobs, they’re more likely to be employed and the length of time they spend looking for jobs tends to be shorter,” says Natalie Holmes, senior research assistant at the Brookings Institution and one of the authors of the report. “It’s great that we’re continuing to recover jobs, but where jobs are located matters.”
Long commutes aren’t just annoying. They’re also potentially hazardous to our health, because of the stress associated with never-ending traffic and sleep deprivation. Researchers have found that driving more than 10 miles a day, each way, to and from work is associated with high cholesterol and an increased chance of developing anxiety and depression. Other studies suggest for poor, minority residents, who may lack the transportation to get to jobs that are far away, growing commutes can significantly dampen their chances of landing a desirable job. “From previous research, we know that especially for low-income workers, they’re more constrained in where they search for jobs,” Holmes says, “so it’s especially troubling to see the rate at which those jobs have declined for them.”
