METROPOLITAN AREA JOB ACCESSIBILITY AND THE WORKING POOR: EXPLORING LOCAL SPATIAL VARIATIONS OF GEOGRAPHIC CONTEXT

Critical geographic perspectives argue that employment access in U. S. metropolitan areas is more complex than traditional understandings, calling for research utilizing approaches that reflect the spatially dynamic structure of cities. This study uses a job proximity indicator of employment access among the working poor, with cluster analysis and spatial regimes modeling, to explore the spatial dimensions of geographic context (neighborhood characteristics) at a localized scale. The findings indicate that: (1) patterns of high or low employment access are not consistent with neoclassical conceptualizations of metropolitan areas; and (2) the statistical relationship between geographic context indicators and the measure of job accessibility were not spatially constant, but varied across the urban landscape. This supports the critical geographic arguments that a high degree of complexity underlies the employment access problem. To better inform public policy, future empirical research needs access to more sophisticated data and methodological approaches to analyze this complex sociospatial phenomenon.