SALT LAKE CITY — For job seekers in today's tight labor market, the number of available jobs is important, but so is the location of the those jobs.
Cities like Houston, St. Louis and Phoenix — instead of San Francisco or Los Angeles — are now among the top U.S. cities for finding a job, reports Monster.com in its mid-year jobs report for 2019, in large part because the health care industry is producing jobs in numerous sectors including tech, customer service and accounting.
As these areas face the repercussions of growth this year, a study released by the Brookings Institute suggests a new way to think about "job density" — the number of jobs in an area — that could prove valuable to everyone from job seekers to city planners.
While standard job density measurements assume jobs are evenly distributed across a geographic area, this study’s method looks instead at the concentration of jobs within smaller sectors of that area, explain the authors, suggesting that there’s merit in jobs of all sectors being clustered together in a small area instead of spread out over several areas.
“The large rise in job density during the recent economic expansion suggests that place actually matters more, not less, in today’s digital economy,” said Chad Shearer, senior research associate and lead author of the report.
While job density can help job seekers by reflecting the type of market they face, it also influences local government policies and city planning decisions. Here’s why keeping job areas concentrated matters for cities and workers and how cities can create greater job density.
Job density trends
Job density is increasing in U.S. cities and metropolitan areas and has been since 2007, according to the Brookings study. While the numbers point to an overall trend, the increase was driven primarily by New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Seattle.
Additionally, job density increased in every job sector except manufacturing and logistics among the 94 metro areas in the study, with most of the new jobs located in more compact areas.
In the Salt Lake City metropolitan area, job density is increasing overall but at a rate that is less than expected, the study found. In the areas outside the Salt Lake metro area, however, jobs today are more spread out than they were in 2004.
Job density and cities
For cities, job density means a more vibrant, prosperous landscape due to the diversity involved in the ecosystem of work.
“New York, for example, pulls in people at all different levels of professionalism,” Spencer Cawley, graduate of city and metropolitan planning at the University of Utah, told the Deseret News, “but also does not limit those that could join its urban center.”
Cawley continues: “Urban centers saw a drop in employment until around 2007 when a resurgence of economic development took place in metro areas. Commute times went down, housing costs were lower, and this allowed for people with various skill sets and levels of knowledge into a closer proximity (at) the urban center.”
In addition to proximity, job density helps cities through basic economics, says Laurel Farrer, CEO of Distribute Consulting and founder of the Remote Work Association. In an article for Forbes, Farrer explains that when a worker gets a local job, their money goes back into the local economy — including taxes from businesses those workers patronize. The areas of jobs, wages, spending, businesses and community are all part of this cycle.
“When the job density of an area increases,” Farrer says, “each stage of this cycle is strengthened,” noting that it can help any area eventually develop into a flourishing place.
The Brookings report authors agree that keeping jobs in more concentrated areas can be a boon for cities:
“Job density offers metropolitan areas a means to increase productive and economic growth, improve social and environmental outcomes, increase civic engagement, and reduce fiscal stress. When coupled with investments in people, dense places can become vibrant, inclusive communities where firms and workers flourish.”
Job density and workers
For workers, job density means productivity and better wages, according to The New York Times, with some studies suggesting that doubling job density can result in four times the productivity rate for workers:
“Some economists have concluded that more than half the variation in output per worker across the U.S. can be explained by density alone; density explains more of the productivity gap across states than education levels or industry concentrations or tax policies.”
In addition, workers benefit when jobs are located where they are. In 2014, the National Research Council found that “while half of people on welfare live in (a) core city, 70% of jobs available to them are located in the suburbs,” according to an EPA report. Suburban living can create difficulties for lower income residents, including increased transportation costs and health risks, the same study finds.
How cities can create job density
The diversity needed for job density ultimately comes from the policies local and state governments create, says Shearer:
“City and regional leaders can build stronger, more inclusive economies by investing in policies that promote more concentrated development patterns that better meet the needs of businesses and workers.”
While these policies can include everything from public transportation to zoning to affordable housing, today’s planners are rethinking the previous approach that’s designed our urban areas and the ways we live and work in them.
“Urban planners have focused on population and housing density in order to understand a place,” Cawley says, “but there are many ways to look at an urban center. Planning is now about finding the (way) that makes the most sense.”
And Cawley emphasizes that the way to job density is deliberate, collaborative design.
“Job density is a result of good urban density. That’s what good density is — everything from housing costs to transportation costs to the design of sidewalks. They all work together.”