Low-wage jobs-housing fit: identifying locations of affordable housing shortages

Abstract

Finding the right jobs-housing balance has long been an important concern for urban planners. More recently, attention has turned to jobs-housing fit -the extent to which housing price is well matched to local job quality. Prior analyses have been constrained by a lack of local data on job quality, making it difficult to identify the geography and scale of the problem. We introduce a new methodology for calculating the low-wage jobs-housing fit at both a jurisdiction and neighborhood scale that was designed in collaboration with affordable housing advocates and has been directly applied in urban planning and affordable housing policy efforts. Low-wage fit is particularly important because of ongoing difficulties with affordable housing provision and the disproportionate benefits of reducing transportation costs for low-income earners. We use the calculated metric at both a city and neighborhood scale to identify what can be learned from a low-wage jobshousing fit metric that is not evident in traditional measures of jobs-housing balance. In contrast to jobs-housing balance, the low-wage fit analysis clearly highlights those jurisdictions and neighborhoods where there is a substantial shortage of affordable housing in relation to the number of low-wage jobs. Because of the geographic coverage of the data sources used, the results can be widely applied across the United States by affordable housing advocates, land-use planners, and policy makers. ARTICLE HISTORY

Integrating road carrying capacity and traffic congestion into the excess commuting framework: The case of Los Angeles

“…in LA on average have more jobs in proximity as time progresses while in reality they are either unable to find a job that matches their expectations or skills nearby or willing to make trade-off between job proximity and other amenities such as better schools and safer neighbourhoods. On the one hand, this is somewhat consistent with Giuliano (1991); however, on the other, it in part highlights the importance of the match between jobs and workers' expectations or skills (Benner and Karner, 2016;Stoker and Ewing, 2014). Of course, in a metropolis like LA, labour division has become so sophisticated, the sprawl of certain jobs is so severe and housing prices are so high in certain areas that it may also be difficult for many to find an appropriate job near his/her residence, or vice versa.…”

Environmental Justice and Regional Political Ecology converge in the other California

“…In addition, the advocates used tools produced by the UC Davis Center for Regional Change (Karner et al 2014). These tools included: a) an environmental justice and regional equity analyses that highlighted the places where the highest concentrations of environmental hazards overlapped with the populations with low levels of economic, political, and social resources ); b) a Jobs-Housing Fit analysis that identified imbalances between the proximity of affordable housing and the accessibility of jobs for low-income households (Benner and Karner 2016); c) a Health Impact Assessment methodology to measure the projected health implications of different SCS planning scenarios in disadvantaged communities Seaton 2014a, Garibay andSeaton 2014b).…”

Achieving Transportation Equity: Meaningful Public Involvement to Meet the Needs of Underserved Communities

“…This concentration of projected growth in underserved communities has two important implications. First, crucial opportunities to reduce GHGs by providing workforce housing well-matched to the earnings of local workers in suburban job centers were not exploited even though substantial mismatches exist between concentrations of low-wage jobs and locations of affordable housing across the region (Benner & Karner, 2016).…”