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This thesis is an empirical investigation of the concentration of employment in Australian cities since 1976. In 1976, Australians shared the same access to employment irrespective of where they lived. However, by 1991 the employment–population ratios varied systematically by socio-economic status. The purpose of this thesis is to use a variety of basic statistical techniques to discern whether it matters where one lives.¶ A panel of 9384 small urban areas is constructed from the last four censuses to enable us to fully document the increasing spatial employment inequality in urban areas and to analyse the possible causes and effects of this increase. The first two chapters describe the overall changes in employment inequality in the urban panel using several summary indexes. Group averages from deciles ranked by socio-economic status are used to illustrate the nature of the problem.¶ The more formal analysis of the causes of increasing inequality commences with a shift share analysis of the changes in employment levels. The results show that national changes in industry structure play an important role in determining the intra-urban distribution of employment. The index of sectoral change also varies systematically within Australian cities, with sectoral change being concentrated in low status areas. The apparent importance of industry structure in determining the geographic dispersion of employment points to employment demand being a significant part of the story.¶ Basic regression techniques and principal component analysis are also used to shed light on several possible inter-related causes and effects of the increasing inequality of employment–population ratios including: increased concentrations of personal characteristics, spatial mismatch, neighbourhood effects and the development of an underclass.¶ There are three main findings about the causes and effects of neighbourhood employment inequality. Firstly, spatial mismatch within or between Australian cities is not an important explanation of the changes in the geographic dispersion of employment. Outside Sydney the location of workers vis-à-vis firms does not influence neighbourhood employment–population ratios. However, even in Sydney, spatial mismatch provides a very limited explanation of neighbourhood inequality.¶ Secondly, substantial neighbourhood-specific effects on employment–population ratios are apparent in the bottom decile(s) of urban neighbourhoods ranked by socio-economic status. These neighbourhood effects explain between one and two-thirds of the differential between the top and bottom decile. The rest of the differential can be explained by differences in endowments of personal characteristics such as human capital variables.¶ Finally, there is convincing evidence that class, and perhaps even an Australian underclass, are important determinants of the distribution of employment outcomes. The underclass in Australia, as measured using techniques similar to US studies, is still very small but is increasing at an alarming rate. However, the sensitivity analysis shows that the underclass, so measured, is closely related to a more general concept of class captured in standard socio-economic status indexes.¶ The scope of this thesis is limited by the regional aggregates supplied in all four censuses. Regional aggregates prevent us from asking subtle questions about who is being affected by the observed changes. The lack of adequate individual-level migration data for neighbourhoods means that it is not possible to directly test any hypothesis about social mobility. This thesis is merely a preliminary analysis of whether the local social environment is important.

The theme of this study is spatial mismatch, a concept that gave rise to an ever-expanding body of research concerned with how and why residential and employment distributions have shifted within cities and across metropolitan areas. The concept grew out of John F. Kain's research on how racial discrimination and segregation affects the spatial patterns of people/subgroups and jobs in the postwar American urban environment. Specifically, "Housing Segregation" posits that housing-market discrimination is at the root of increased unemployment among inner-city, nonwhite workers; concurrently, the pace and volume of decentralization (of residents and employment) from central-cities reinforces low-income, overwhelmingly African-American isolation and immobility. This study contributes to the New Orleans literature by providing a pre- and post-Katrina snapshot of spatial mismatch. The analysis addresses research questions aimed at gauging the extent to which mismatch and job-isolation have changed for poor workers in the New Orleans metro area since Hurricane Katrina.

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South African cities are still largely unequal where the urban poor’s right to the city is not adequately addressed. As a result of the legacy of apartheid and the various housing policies that have been adopted to address housing segregation, Johannesburg remains spatially fragmented with the urban poor remaining isolated in the periphery of the city far from places of employment and opportunity. With the decentralization and deindustrialization of employment, commuting for the urban poor has become more time consuming and costly with an average monthly commute costing R1 500.00. The City of Johannesburg has committed to tackling these structural and spatial inequalities that exist in Johannesburg through its flagship programme called Corridors of Freedom. Corridors of Freedom aims to transform the spatial inequalities in Johannesburg through the creation of geographies of inclusion using transit oriented development (TOD). This is through investing in public transport with the development of the Rea Vaya Bus Rapid Transit System (BRT) and inclusionary housing as the backbone to eradicate spatial. Corridors of Freedom aims to address housing segregation through the extension of the Rea Vaya BRT system in peripheral townships and through inclusionary housing provision to promote inclusive development in Johannesburg. This study will evaluate whether Corridors of Freedom and its associated developments have the potential to improve the lives of potential beneficiaries of two townships, Kagiso in the West Rand and Soweto. The study seeks to understand how the presence of the Rea Vaya BRT system can assist the urban poor’s access to the city and places of employment and opportunity. A comparison is made between Soweto residents who directly benefit from using the Rea Vaya buses and the Kagiso residents who do not have access to the Rea Vaya buses. Several stakeholders were interviewed including both the residents of Kagiso and Soweto. It was concluded that the Rea Vaya BRT system is a poverty-reduction strategy for the urban poor and an attempt from the City of Johannesburg to correct the existing spatial inequalities.The Rea Vaya Bus Rapid Transit system along with well-located social housing is an important step towards addressing inclusivity and bringing people close to places of employment and opportunity.

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La présente thèse contribue à la littérature en économie urbaine sur les effets de quartiers en cherchant à répondre à trois questions liées : quelle est l’importance du territoire dans la sortie du chômage ? Peut-on parler d’effets de quartier en France ? Comment expliquer la géographie du chômage local ? La réponse à ces questions nécessite une démarche en plusieurs temps. D’abord, l’importance du territoire est analysée par une revue de littérature qui liste les différents mécanismes par lequel le contexte local peut influer sur l’accès à l’emploi des individus. Nous proposons également une analyse descriptive des disparités de chômage entre communes, en France et plus particulièrement en Ile-de-France. Les forts contrastes, qui se maintiennent même lorsque l’on considère la composition locale des demandeurs d’emplois, témoignent d’une relative importance du territoire.La thèse propose, par la suite, des analyses empiriques sur données individuelles pour démontrer l’existence d’effets de quartier en France. Nous montrons que la "qualité" du quartier et les caractéristiques qui lui sont propres déterminent le statut d’emploi des individus. Les individus qui vivent dans les quartiers les plus "défavorisés" ont moins de chances que les autres de trouver un emploi et lorsqu’ils en trouvent un, celui-ci est généralement de moindre qualité. Parmi les effets de quartiers observés, nous cherchons à mettre en évidence l’existence d’une discrimination liée au lieude résidence. Nous proposons des méthodologies distinctes mais complémentaires pour analyser l’effet de la réputation d’un quartier. Nous observons que cette dernière diminue les chances de trouver un emploi. Enfin, pour rendre compte de la géographie du chômage, la thèse propose différentes analyses à l’échelle de la commune et centrées sur la région Ile-de-France. L’objectif est de tester différents mécanismes évoqués dans la littérature en économie urbaine(ségrégation résidentielle, Spatial Mismatch, Skill Mismatch etc.) afin de voir lesquels sont les plus pertinents et lesquels doivent être considérés en priorité. Identifier les mécanismes en jeu est une étape nécessaire et importante pour orienter les politiques publiques qui chercheraient notamment à améliorer la situation des quartiers les plus défavorisés. / This thesis contributes to the literature in urban economics on neighborhood effects by answering three questions : What is the importance of territory in unemployment-to-work transitions ? Are there neighborhood effects in France ? How to explainunemployment geography ? Answering to these questions requires an approach in several steps. Firstly, the importance of the territory is analyzed by a literature review that lists the different mechanisms by which the local context can affect individuals’ access to employment. We also propose a descriptive analysis of unemployment disparities between municipalities in France and especially in the Paris region. The strong contrasts, which are maintained even when one considers the composition of local job-seekers, show the relative importance of the territory. Then, the thesis proposes empirical analysis on individual data to demonstrate the existence of neighborhood effects in France. We show that the "quality" of the neighborhood and its characteristics determine individuals’ employment status. Individuals who live in deprived neighborhoods are less likely than others to find a job and when they find it, it is generally of lower quality. Among the observed neighborhoods effects, we seek to highlight the existence of territorial discrimination. We propose different but complementary methodologies to analyze the effect of the reputation of a neighborhood. We observe that it decreases the chances of finding employment. Finally, in order to explain unemployment geography, the thesis proposes some analysisformunicipalities in Paris region. The objective is to test different mechanisms discussed in the literature in urban economics (residential segregation, Spatial Mismatch, emphSkill Mismatch etc.) to see which are most relevant and which should be considered a priority. Identify the mechanisms involved is a necessary and an important step to guide public policies that want to improve the situation of deprived neighborhoods.

The City of São Paulo is one of the largest cities in the world, with 11,244,369 people living in the metropolitan area and over 19,672,582 people living in the greater metropolitan region, which is made up of 38 cities in the surrounding area (IBGE, Census 2010). Ten percent of the population in the entire country of Brazil lives in São Paulo, and 15.6% of Brazil’s Gross Domestic Product comes from São Paulo. There is an average of 38.1 million trips taken per day in the metropolitan region. Most of the city’s low-income population lives in the periphery of the city, where the land is least expensive, yet most job opportunities are concentrated in the city center, creating a spatial mismatch. Spatial mismatch occurs when low-income residents live in one area of a city, but their places of employment and job opportunities are located in another part of the city. In a spatial mismatch situation, low-income residents often travel long distances to find work and suffer from isolation based on the disconnect between where they live, where they work, and the difficulty in getting from one place to another. The current transportation infrastructure is insufficient to transport the number of commuters from the periphery to and from the city center to work on a daily basis. In this study I will explore this spatial mismatch through an analysis of both qualitative and quantitative travel data for the entire São Paulo Metropolitan Area, with a specific focus on the Zona Sul of the periphery, in order to understand the limitations of transportation infrastructure and spatial mobility for residents of the city. / text

The overarching goal of this dissertation is to examine the spatial, temporal, and modal disparity of access across America. This is achieved by posing three research objectives. The first objective determines the spatial and temporal disparity of transit and automobile access gap, its impact on transit use, and its socioeconomic and built environment correlates. The second objective examines the spatial and temporal disparity of slightly and extremely risky bike infrastructure and measures the social inequity of access to bike infrastructure. The third objective indicates spatial transit access mismatch between high- and low-wage employment across metropolitans. Three findings are discerned. First, the access gap between transit and automobile has a disproportionate effect on African Americans, low-income households, millennials, and car-free households. Second, socially vulnerable communities residing African Americans, Hispanics, and car-free households have the least access to slightly risky bike infrastructure and yet the least prioritized in urban planning and bike infrastructure investments. Third, transit acts as a catalyst to widen spatial mismatch and discriminate socially vulnerable population particularly African Americans and car-free households

Master of Regional and Community Planning / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Jae Hong-Kim / The concept of Live-Work-Play has grown in popularity in the field of planning, as various strands of the planning literature increasingly have highlighted the potential benefits of providing places to live, work, and play in close proximity. This study explores the theoretical foundations of the Live-Work-Play concept and discusses its effectiveness as a strategy for creating vibrant urban areas by reforming the spatial arrangement of the built environments. More specifically, the present study empirically examines how the segregation or the mixture of places to live, work, and play may create differences in terms of growth, inequality, education, the built environment, and transportation by analyzing the Boston metropolitan region as an example. The empirical analysis with the use of census tract level socio-economic data shows that the Live-Work-Play mixes can encourage more desirable travel patterns, while the mixes may not significantly promote growth in small areas. However, the analysis also revealed racial and income inequalities exist in the provision of the mixes in the Boston region. These findings suggest planners carefully should consider the equity issues when adopting the Live-Work-Play concept and providing its potential benefits.