Metropolitan areas vary widely in employment distribution and labour accessibility. Comparing four US metropolitan areas-Atlanta, Boston, Phoenix and Washington, DC-it is found that Atlanta and Washington, DC suffer from low labour accessibility compared with Boston and Phoenix. Moreover, large suburban employment centres in Atlanta and Washington, DC suffer from even lower accessibility than other employment centres within the same metropolitan areas or their counterparts in Boston and Phoenix. Their low labour accessibility is mainly explained by slower commuting speeds. Even though their residential and employment densities are modest, congestion in these employment centres is severe enough to undermine accessibility. The results raise questions about the effectiveness of creating large sub-centres in metropolitan areas, particularly creating auto-oriented edge-city-style employment centres at highway nodes.

This paper examines the mobility of an increasingly important demographic group in the U.S., Hispanic immigrants. Using National Household Travel Survey data for 2009, this paper finds that, compared to the mobility of other populations, the mobility of Hispanic female immigrants is much lower, particularly when household income is low. Hispanic female immigrants are substantially less likely to be drivers than their male counterparts, and their probability of being a driver stagnates for decades after immigration, unlike female immigrants of other race/ethnicity groups. Hispanic female immigrants seem to remain nondrivers rather reluctantly. At the household level, Hispanic immigrants do not actively choose less auto-dependent lifestyles, and females clearly depend on others' mobility. Yet once Hispanic female immigrants become drivers, they drive more than females of other race/ethnicity groups. Their high, hidden demand for driving is likely not related to domestic needs because their driving mileage is unassociated with child-caring duties, and is associated with household income level. The association between low-income status and driver status of Hispanic female immigrants has policy implications, especially if the barriers to becoming a driver limit Hispanic female immigrants' access to training or employment and contribute to their low-income status. More detailed analysis is anticipated to detail the mobility challenges Hispanic female immigrants face.

Political and cultural polarization in the United States is widely discussed, but does it relate to any economic disconnection among states? We estimate the "border" effect between Red and Blue states using the gravity equation with a nonlinear generalized method of moments estimator to simultaneously overcome the problems associated with endogeneity, cross-state price differences, and zero-trade flow. The border effect is robustly confirmed for the 2000s, while not so robustly detected for the 1990s. Notably, in 2007, the border reduces trade between Red and Blue states to approximately 75% of the trade within each set of states. This estimated border effect is much smaller than the United States-Canada national border effect estimated by Anderson and van Wincoop (2003), and by Feenstra (2002), yet is comparable to the border effect that Nitsch and Wolf (2009) find for the former West and East Germanies approximately 10 years after reunification. While the border effect in Germany after reunification is decreasing, the border effect between the Red and Blue states is emerging. We also find the border effect is more significant for consumption, rather than intermediate, goods. The border effect is an important indicator for a potential dismantling of the economic connectivity in the United States. (JEL D72, F10, F15, R1) * We are grateful to the editor Bruce Blonigen, two anonymous referees, Yasushi Asako, Masahiro Endoh, and Giovanni Facchini for their comments and discussions. We also appreciate comments by seminar participants at

Carpooling and drivers without household vehicles: 1 Gender disparity in automobility among Hispanics and non-Hispanics in 2 the U.S.

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