MIT Center for Real Estate
Week 5: Employment
Decentralization, “edge” cities.
• Measuring Decentralization, space versus
jobs.
• Wages, the urban labor market and the
incentive for decentralization.
• Local agglomeration, clustering,
transportation infrastructure, planning and
other “limits to sprawl”.
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National % of office space in CBD as opposed to
MIT C state
Suburbs
(source: CBRE)
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Washington D.C.: City and Suburban
MIT C state
Office Space
(source: CBRE)
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
1950

Pe rcent of Stock
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
22
24
26
28
30
32
M iles out from Center
1980 2002
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The Distribution of Office Using Jobs Across The
MIT C state
NY CMSA
[Source: Employment Zip file, 1999]
120%
100%
80%
60%
40%

.75
.25
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Distance from Center of the CBD (miles)
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Figure 6: New York Spatial Distributions
Cummulative Employment and Population (%)
Distance from Center of the CBD (miles)
Employment
Population
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
55
0
.25
.5
.75
1
MIT C state
MIT Center for Real Estate

Sacram
Montgom
Columb
Charlest
Portland
AtlCity
Chatta
Minneap
FortWay
Allent
Toledo
ColSpr
Biloxi
Peoria
Houston
SaltLake
Wash
Lincoln
.7
.6
Columb
Clevel
.5
Albany
Atlanta
August
Baltim
BatonR
Boston
Buffalo

Louisv
Lubbock
Madison
McAllen
Memphis
Miami
Milwauk
Mobile
Modesto
NewYork
Norfolk
Omaha
Orlando
Philad
Phoenix
Pittsbu
Providen
Provo
Raleigh
Reading
Reno
Richmond
Roanoke
Rockf
StLouis
Salem
SanDieg
SanFran
SantaB
Savannah

• With complete job-residence dispersal: no commuting!
• With centralized employment traffic worst at the edge of
the business district
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F ig u re 4: L an d U se an d T ravel C o sts,
2 m illio n in h ab itan ts, m ixed u se city, h igh ag g lo m eratio n
1.2
500
450
% of Total
1
400
350
0.8
300
0.6
250
200
0.4
150
100
0.2
50
0
0
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 130 140 150 160 170 180 190
Dista nce (1/10 M ile)
Cum ulative E m ploym ent Cum ulative P opulation Travel Costs/mile
Figure 6: Land Use and Travel Costs,
2 million inhabitants, mixed use city, low agglomeration