Job and Housing Tenure and the Journey to Work

Abstract

Tenure at jobs and houses, along with commuting patterns between home and work were studied for residents of metropolitan Washington. Two alternative potential outcomes were considered: (1) Because moving or switching jobs can be used as an opportunity to reduce commuting duration in an era of rising congestion, those who recently moved or changed jobs should have shorter than average commutes; and (2) Because most new residential construction is at the urban fringe, an area of longer commutes, those who recently moved to new homes should have longer commutes. Evaluation of the effect of commuting duration on job and housing tenure suggests that those who move on average maintain commute duration rather than having a major increase or decrease. This corroborates the idea that there are offsetting factors, where increases in commute lengths due to suburbanizing residences are counteracted by the correlated process of suburbanizing jobs.