Evaluating measures of jobs-housing proximity and their commuting impacts in Shanghai

Liying Yuekaiming li^*

• Shanghai University, Shanghai, China

A long controversy arises over the magnitude of jobs-housing proximity on commuting length. Different views may stem in part from the inconsistency of selection of jobs-housing proximity measures. Jobworker ratio, minimum commuting, and job accessibility are three common proxies for jobs-housing proximity. This paper analyzed and compared the magnitude of these measures on average commuting distance for overall workers and five occupational worker subgroups, based on national 1% Population Sample Survey in Shanghai. The results indicate that, in contrast to studies in developed countries, job accessibility has strongest explanatory power for average commuting distance, and job-worker ratio is the weakest one, followed by minimum commuting. Residential location follows patterns of average job location rather than that of the closest available job location in Shanghai. Each measure is valuable in characterizing the spatial proximity between jobs and housing, and can provide important information and guidance to policy makers on the jobs-housing proximity. This study highlights that improving jobshousing balance is an effective way to reduce commuting length, but the magnitude of impacts varies with the category of measures and worker subgroups. In order to make jobs-housing balance an effective planning tool with which to shorten commuting, land use patterns at the local and regional levels need to be spatially linked and coordinated.