Research into land use-transportation relationships through the lens of the jobs-housing balance and the closely-related excess commuting framework continues to draw substantial interdisciplinary attention. There have been several recent research efforts aimed at extending the excess commuting framework and its GIS-based spatial models to more prescriptive, policy-relevant situations. This paper puts forward the idea of a theoretical optimal urban jobs-housing balance and proposes a new spatial model for finding it. The developed model treats the regions theoretical minimum commute as a baseline indicator of jobs-housing balance. Alternative patterns of workers and jobs are simulated in order to improve this indicator. The model is demonstrated in several scenarios using data from the decennial U.S. Census (2000). Results demonstrate the models capability for finding optimal spatial distributions of jobs and housing, as well as pointing out the inefficiencies in existing urban structure. Summary remarks and suggestions for future research are provided.
Abstract