CARS FOR THE POOR

Abstract

Cars for the Poor BY KATHERINE M. O’REGAN & JOHN M. QUIGLEY Urban jobs continue to migrate away from central cities, while workers are moving to the suburbs. With each passing decade, the commute from home to work has become more dispersed. The historical division of function between central city and suburbs—the central city providing jobs, the suburbs providing residences— no longer holds. Between 1970 and 1990 the percentage of white workers with central city jobs declined by more than half, from 50 to 20 percent, and the percentage of black workers with central city jobs declined from 61 to 37 percent. The decentralization of residences was even more dramatic. The proportion of white workers living in the central cities of US metropolitan areas declined by 29 percentage points, while the proportion of black workers declined by 42 percentage points. By 1990, only about one out of eight white urban workers was living in a central city. Katherine M. O’Regan is associate professor of economics and public policy at the Yale School of Management, New Haven, CT 06520 (kathy.oregan@yale.edu). John M. Quigley is Chancellor’s Professor of economics and public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-7320 (quigley@econ.berkeley.edu). A C C E S S

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