In this paper data from the economic censuses are utilized to show that most job growth in the manufacturing, wholesaling, retail, and service industries in the 1982–87 period has been in the urban peripheries of the twelve consolidated metropolitan statistical areas (CMSAs). Similar data for 1976, 1980, and 1986 from another source, the Wharton Urban Decentralization Project, confirm many of these trends, and for a larger set of metropolitan areas. The results show that Los Angeles is more in the middle of the twelve CMSAs than it is an outlier. It is suggested that these common results reflect a common process, that is, an initial movement of households towards the metropolitan edge in search of amenities (or flight from central city ills), followed by the decentralization of firms to increase their access to suburban labor pools.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
BerryB J LKimH-K, 1993, “Challenges to the monocentric model”Geographical Analysis25(1) 1–4
2.
BoC, various years Statistical Abstract of the United StatesUS Department of Commerce, Economic and Statistics Administration, Bureau of the Centre, Washington, DC
3.
CheshireP C, 1993, “Some causes of Western European patterns of urban change, 1971–88”, in Urban Change in the United States and Western Europe: Comparative Analysis and PolicyThe Urban Institute (The Urban Institute Press, Washington, DC) pp 145–191
4.
ClarkW A VKuijpers-LindeM, 1994, “Commuting in restructuring urban regions”Urban Studies31465–483
5.
DeryckeP-H, 1992, “The ‘new urban economics’ in retrospect”Sistemi Urbani1–3109–126
6.
EDD, 1994Annual Planning InformationEconomic Development Department, State of California, Sacramento, CA
7.
FreyW H, 1993, “The new urban revival in the United States”Urban Studies30741–774
8.
FujitaMOgawaH, 1982, “Multiple equilibria and structural transition of non-monocentric urban configurations”Regional Science and Urban Economics12161–196
9.
GarreauJ, 1991Edge City (Doubleday, New York)
10.
GuilianoGSmallK A, 1991, “Subcenters in the Los Angeles region”Regional Science and Urban Economics21163–182
11.
GiulianoGSmallK A, 1992, “The determinants of growth of employment subcenters”, paper presented at the American Economic Association meeting, Anaheim, CA, January 1993; copy available from the author, Department of Economics, University of California, Los Angeles, CA
12.
GordonPRichardsonH W, 1996, “Beyond policentricity: The dispersed metropolis, Los Angeles, 1970–1990”Journal of the American Planning Association forthcoming
13.
GordonPRichardsonH WWongH L, 1986, “The distribution of population and employment in a policycentric city: The case of Los Angeles”Environment and Planning A18161–173
14.
HallP G, 1988London 2001 (Unwin Hyman, London)
15.
HartshornT AMullerP O, 1989, “Suburban downtowns and the transformation of metropolitan Atlanta's business landscape”Urban Geography10375–395
16.
HelsleyR WSullivanA M, 1991, “Dynamic models of urban subcenter formation”Regional Science and Urban Economics21255–275
17.
LinnemanP DSummersA A, 1993, “Patterns and processes of employment and population decentralization in the United States 1970–87”, in Urban Change in the United States and Western Europe: Comparative Analysis and PolicyThe Urban Institute (The Urban Institute Press, Washington, DC) pp 87–144
18.
McDonaldJ FPratherP J, 1991, “A polycentric employment density model for the Chicago urbanized area”, Department of Economics, University of Illinois, Chicago, IL
19.
MuthR, 1985, “Models of land use, housing and rent: An evaluation”Journal of Regional Science25593–606
20.
OgawaHFujitaM, 1989, “Nonmonocentric urban configurations in a two-dimensional space”Environment and Planning A21363–374
21.
RichardsonH W, 1988, “Monocentric vs polycentric models”Annals of Regional Science221–12
22.
RowlandAGordonP, 1996, “Mexico City”, in Mega-cities in Latin America Ed. GilbertA (United Nations University Press, Tokyo)
23.
SahlingL GAndersonV A, 1992, “Paris: A bold game plan for the 21st century”Urban Land51(5) 46–51
24.
SasakiK, 1990, “The establishment of a subcenter and urban spatial structure”Environment and Planning A22369–384
25.
SchwartzA, 1992, “Cities, suburbs, and the geography of corporate service provision”, WP-39, Center for Urban Policy Research, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
26.
StanbackT M, 1991The New Suburbanization (Westview Press, Boulder, CO)
27.
SteinnesD N, 1977, “Causality and intraurban location”Journal of Urban Economics469–79
28.
WaddellPShuklaV, 1993, “Employment dynamics, spatial restructuring and the business cycle”Geographical Analysis25(1) 35–52
29.
WheatonW C, 1993, “Downtown versus edge cities: Spatial competition for jobs in the 1990s”, Center for Real Estate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
30.
WhiteS BBinkleyL SOstermanJ D, 1993, “The sources of suburban employment growth”Journal of the American Planning Association59193–204
31.
WieandK F, 1987, “An extension of the monocentric urban spatial equilibrium model to a multicenter setting: The case of the two-center city”Journal of Urban Economics21259–271
