August 21, 2006

Helping Inner City Residents Find Suburban Jobs

CHICAGO — Providing transportation to reach jobs that have relocated to the suburbs is not enough to help low-income and minority urban job seekers find employment according to a new study published in the summer edition of the Journal of the American Planning Association.

"Overcoming Mismatch: Beyond Dispersal, Mobility, and Development Strategies," written by Karen Chapple, a city and regional planning professor at the University of California at Berkeley, found that planners need to facilitate new social networks to overcome spatial mismatch — when jobs leave the city for suburban locations resulting in high unemployment rates among non-whites.

"John Kain's theory of spatial mismatch from the 1960s has focused policy decisions on making transportation accessible for inner city residents to reach suburban jobs," said Chapple. "However, transportation is not the only issue for jobseekers. Planners must begin to address the social barriers that keep urban job seekers from meeting with suburban employers, or even the employers next door."

In the study, Chapple calls for policy decisions that encourage establishing and building social networks. The majority of urban job seekers learn about employment opportunities from neighbors and community members.

Chapple believes that planners can encourage social networks by ensuring first that communities are not isolated, for instance by maintaining affordable shopping options for residents. Secondly, they can make transportation more accessible for both work and non-work travel. And most importantly, planners can assist in locating workforce development programs and intermediaries throughout the region so they are accessible to job seekers.

Chapple believes that planners have the knowledge, tools, and resources at hand that can help promote such social networks and initiate social change in our communities.

Contact

Roberta Rewers, APA Public Affairs, 312-786-6395; rrewers@planning.org