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15 03R
Are America’s Inner Cities Competitive?
Evidence from the 2000s
Daniel A. Hartley, Nikhil Kaza, and
T. William Lester
FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF CLEVELAND
Working papers of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland are preliminary materials circulated to
stimulate discussion and critical comment on research in progress. They may not have been subject to the
formal editorial review accorded official Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland publications. The views stated
herein are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Federal Reserve Banks of Cleveland or
Chicago or of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
Working papers are available on the Cleveland Fed’s website at:
www.clevelandfed.org
Working Paper 15-03R
December 2015*
Are America’s Inner Cities Competitive? Evidence from the 2000s
Daniel A. Hartley, Nikhil Kaza, and T. William Lester
In the years since Michael Porter’s paper about the potential competitiveness of
inner cities there has been growing evidence of a residential resurgence in urban
neighborhoods. Yet, there is less evidence on the competitiveness of inner cities
for employment. We document the trends in net employment growth and find
that inner cities gained over 1.8 million jobs between 2002 and 2011 at a rate
comparable to suburban areas. We also find a significant number of inner cities are
competitive over this period—increasing their share of metropolitan employment
in 144 out of 281 MSAs. We also describe the pattern of job growth within the inner city, finding that tracts that grew faster tended to be closer to downtown, with
access to transit, and adjacent to areas with higher population growth. However,
tracts with higher poverty rates experienced less job growth, indicating that
barriers still exist in the inner city.
JEL Classification: R12, O18
Keywords: Urban Labor Markets, City and Suburban Employment
Suggested citation: Hartley, Daniel A., Nikhil Kaza, and T. William Lester, 2015.
“Are America’s Inner Cities Competitive? Evidence from the 2000s,” Federal
Reserve Bank of Cleveland, working paper no 15-03R.
Daniel A. Hartley is at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago (daniel.a.hartley@
chi.frb.org); Nikhil Kaza is at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
(
[email protected]); and T. William Lester is at the University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill (
[email protected]). The authors extend special thanks for excellent
research assistance to Daniel Kolliner.
*First version March 2015.
1. Introduction
In the years since Michael Porter’s seminal paper about the potential competitiveness of inner
cities, two narratives have emerged about the overall pattern of urban economic development. The
first, which we call the “comeback cities” narrative, states that the decades of the 1990s and 2000s were
a renaissance for cities as flows of population, jobs and investment shifted back from suburbs and
exurbs to urban areas, particularly downtowns The literature on gentrification, as well as the oft-cited
creative class theories of Richard Florida underscore this narrative by highlighting the pro-urban
preferences and consumption patterns of a new, rising middle class (R. Florida, 2003; Neil Smith, 2002;
Zukin, 1982). The second narrative that has taken shape is that of an uneven geography of growth in the
last few decades. The literature on high-technology regions argues that contemporary US economic
development has taken on a distinctly uneven pattern that leads to a polarization between so-called
“innovative” regions and “backward” regions, which in turn drives inequality and a divergence in
outcomes across metropolitan areas (Moretti, 2012; Pastor, Lester, & Scoggins, 2009; Saxenian, 1994).i
The implication of this second narrative is that the type of inner-city renaissance described in the first
narrative will only occur in growing, innovative regional economies. However, is this necessarily the
case? Can inner-city economic growth occur in declining regions? Recent research has demonstrated
an empirical link between gentrification and neighborhood job growth (Lester & Hartley, 2014). Yet, is
the type of consumption-based growth that is fueled by gentrification in growing regions like New York
or the San Francisco Bay Area the only mechanism to bring jobs back to urban neighborhoods? Or can
robust job growth stem from expansion of anchor institutions in non-tradable sectors such as
universities and health care institutions (Adams, 2003; Harkavy & Zuckerman, 1999)? In addition to
private market-driven development, policy makers have employed a host of economic development
tools and distributed millions of dollars in funding targeted towards business development and job
growth in inner-city neighborhoods. Have tools such as targeted tax credits (e.g. Empowerment
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Zone/Enterprise Community designation, Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC)) influenced the
pattern of inner city employment growth? In this paper, we explore these intertwined narratives by
describing the pattern of neighborhood based employment changes at a national scale. We then test
the validity of a number of competing claims about the competitiveness of inner-city neighborhoods in
terms of economic development during the 2000s.
First, using data at the census tract level from the Local Origin-Destination Employment Statistics
(LODES) program at the US Census Bureau, we begin by providing an overview of the extent and broad
characteristics of employment growth of inner-cities, CBDs, and suburban areas of all metropolitan
areas in the U.S. Surprisingly, we find that the rate of job growth between 2002 and 2011 in innercities—defined broadly as non-CBD tracts in the largest principal city within a metropolitan area—was
on par with that of suburban areas (6.1% versus 6.9%) and even surpassed suburbs in the post-Great
recession recovery (2009-11). This trend is consistent across broad census regions. Yet, this trend is less
pronounced—though still positive—when we focus only on portions of the inner city that were more
economically distressed at the start of the 2000s.
Next, we explicitly test the question of inner-city competitiveness by identifying metropolitan
areas that had both net positive employment growth and an increase in the share of jobs located in the
inner city (these two criteria form our working definition of competitive inner cities). We find 144 MSAs
with competitive inner-cities using our broad definition of inner city tracts and 85 using the narrower
method. These MSAs are diverse geographically, but, compared to other metropolitan areas, tend to
have above average growth in high-wage jobs, less racial segregation, and less job sprawl.
Finally, we provide a third, descriptive analysis of the spatial determinants of inner-city growth
at the tract-level within inner-city areas. Specifically, we find that inner-city employment growth is
positively associated with neighborhoods closer to downtown, with nearby population increases, recent
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residential construction, and other indicators of gentrification. We also find that employment grew
faster in areas with mixed uses and greater employment diversity. There is some evidence that
empowerment zone designation is associated with more employment growth. However, tracts with
high poverty levels have lower job growth. Within economically distressed inner city areas, these
findings are very similar, although job growth is driven less by indicators of gentrification and are more
closely associated with expansion of anchor institutions.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: Section two reviews the research on the
competitiveness of inner cities, and puts our empirical analysis in the context of the literature inspired
by Porter’s work. Section three describes the main datasets and analytical methods used in our analysis.
Section four presents the descriptive analysis of the patterns of inner city job growth in aggregate and
describes our analysis of the characteristics of regions with competitive inner cities. Section five,
presents our model of tract-level correlates of inner-city employment growth. The final section
concludes the paper and summarizes our rich descriptive analysis of the nature of inner-city job growth
in the 2000s.
2.
Literature Review
Writing in 1997 in this journal, Michael Porter made a strong and influential argument that
inner-city areas had important and “unrecognized” competitive advantages as a business location.
Specifically, he called for a private-sector-led economic development strategy which leveraged the
strategic location of inner city neighborhoods (near the CBD and key infrastructure), the integration with
existing regional economic strengths, as well as the local purchasing power and human resources of
inner-city residents (Porter, 1997). While he recognized a significant role for government (and nonprofits), he also helped to highlight regulatory barriers of high-taxes and red tape that prevented further
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private sector investment. Looking back at his strategic recommendations and comparing them to
current practice, it is easy to see how influential they have been, as few contemporary urban economic
developers or planners would find much to disagree with. However, it is important to recall the context
in which he was writing. While the mid-1990s was a period of significant economic growth for the U.S.,
it followed nearly two decades of economic restructuring which significantly altered the economic role
of central cities and changed the geography of employment opportunities throughout most
metropolitan areas in the country.
The decades of the 1970s and 1980s were characterized by a pattern of economic restructuring
that featured the dual trends of massive manufacturing job losses coupled with the continued
suburbanization of population and employment. These trends significantly reduced the base of job
opportunities for residents of inner city neighborhoods, which once housed many of the goods
producing jobs and a predominantly working-class workforce. The problem of declining employment in
older, inner-city neighborhoods and growth in emerging suburban areas was first recognized in the late
1960s by scholars like Kain (1968) who argued that housing discrimination coupled with lack of
opportunity in urban areas led to a persistently high unemployment of minority workers in inner cities.
While the “spatial mismatch” hypothesis has been a widely debated topic in the social sciences (see
Chapple, 2006; Ihlanfeldt & Sjoquist, 1989; Teitz & Chapple, 1998), the declining employment within
inner-city neighborhoods was widely viewed as a critical problem. To get a sense of how profoundly
scholars viewed the problem of the inner-city in the mid-1990s, we recall here the opening lines of
Galster and Killen’s (1995) article on the geography of metropolitan opportunity as follows:
Horatio Alger lies dead in the streets of the inner city. For millions of Americans, the rags-toriches fable has been reduced to ashes just as surely as have many blocks in South Central Los
Angeles and other desperate inner-city communities. What once was a spring board of
socioeconomic mobility for generations…has for too many been transformed into a pit in which
perpetual deprivation and social dysfunction reign. (Galster and Killen, 1995, 7)
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Scholars from a wide variety of disciplines attempted to diagnose the problems associated with
lack of inner-city employment opportunities, linking it broader issues of neighborhood decline including
high crime, persistent poverty, segregation and changing attitudes toward work (Kasarda, 1993; Katz,
1993; Wilson, 1987, 1996).
The issue of declining inner-city employment and population losses coupled with continued
suburbanization and sprawl also spawned concerns that declining central cities could pose a drag to an
entire region’s economic growth. This, in turn, ignited a series of studies specifically focused on the
question of whether or not suburbs could prosper without their central cities (Hill, Wolman, & Ford,
1995; Ledebur & Barnes, 1993; Voith, 1992 1998). Pack’s (2002) comprehensive analysis of long-term
trends in metropolitan economic performance bears this out. Between 1960 and 1990 the share of
income earned by central city residents declined from 45% to 30% and rose in suburban areas from 55%
to 70% (Pack, 2002, 3). Although a great deal of empirical work focused on the issue of inner city
competitiveness and the inter-dependency of suburbs and cities, eventually a consensus emerged
supporting the idea that the economic health of both areas was closely linked by regional factors. Voith
(1992) concluded that “decline in central cities is likely to be associated with slow-growing suburbs.
Even if the most acute problems associated with urban decline do not arise in the suburbs, central city
decline is likely to be a long-run, slow drain on the economic and social vitality of the region.” (Voith,
1992, 31)
Just as the attention of federal policy makers shifted away from defining economic challenges in
in stark urban versus suburban terms, the academic literature shifted in the following decade to
questions of the determinants of overall metropolitan economic competitiveness. The key question
here was what factors explained the relative economic health and resilience of some metropolitan
regions, particularly those with a growing, high-technology industrial base. The work of Saxenian (1994),
Storper (1997) and others argued that metropolitan areas that featured regionally-based networks of
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firms and supporting institutions that foster accelerated innovation were ultimately more resilient to
economic restructuring and, as a result, are more competitive in terms of employment and income
growth. This emphasis on innovation and regional competitiveness in the economic development
literature had a profound impact on practice (Clark, 2013) and shifted the focus away from intrametropolitan disparities and instead highlighted the overall uneven pattern of metropolitan growth in
the 1990s and 2000s.
Starting in the early 2000s, a new narrative began to emerge on “comeback cites” as many
scholars used newly available census data to identify a growing trend of residential growth particularly
focused in the downtown and nearby areas of older central cities (Sohmer & Lang, 2001). Much of this
research highlighted shifting demographics such as the aging of the population (i.e. empty nesters
without children) and changing preferences for high-amenity locations like downtown as the causes of
residential resurgence of downtown areas. This research is largely congruent with a pre-existing
literature on the causes and consequences of gentrification. What began as a niche field that focused
on select neighborhoods in places like the Lower East Side in New York (Niel Smith, 1996) or the South
End in Boston and was initially considered a relatively small trend (Wyly & Hammel, 1999), has now
grown to be an active literature drawing scholarship from a wide variety of disciplines. While much of
the empirical debate in the gentrification literature focused on measuring the extent of displacement
(Freeman, 2005; Marcuse, 1985; Vigdor, 2002) within individual cities, there is growing consensus that
gentrification is part of a broader demographic shift that results in the influx of better educated and high
income households to formerly low and moderate income inner-city neighborhoods. The drivers of this
trend are seen to involve changes in the consumption and locational preferences of what some
sociologists called a “new middle class” (Ley, 1996) and what Richard Florida (2002) later termed the
“creative class.” Regardless of their moniker, members of this demographic sub-group favor urban living
and the greater accessibility it affords over the suburban dream of previous generations. According to
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these scholars, such preference shifts also drive gentrification by increasing demand for urban
entertainment and consumption spaces for the new high-income residents (Lloyd & Clark, 2001; Zukin,
1982).
While scholars continue to debate how widespread and significant gentrification is as a
demographic trend and what it will ultimate mean for inner cities, there is a growing literature that has
examined the impact of gentrification on employment within inner-city neighborhoods. Curran (2004;
2007) focused on a single neighborhood-Williamsburg in Brooklyn—and found that new residential
growth led to displacement of nearby industrial jobs. Meltzer and Schuetz (2012) showed that
neighborhood retail grew faster in New York City neighborhoods that experienced gentrification. More
recently Lester and Hartley (2014) examined the impact of gentrification at the census tract-level using
detailed employment data for 29 large cities in the US and found that gentrifying neighborhoods had
faster employment growth and a more rapid shift between traditionally blue collar work and locally
oriented services such as restaurants and entertainment. Beyond these studies, there have been
relatively few papers that specifically look at the nature of employment growth in inner-cities. There
have been individual case studies such as Hutton’s (2004) description of the emergence of new hightech industry clusters in Vancouver, BC. In addition, there are two new reports that focus on the longterm residential shifts of poor neighborhoods in U.S. metropolitan areas which suggest that the
gentrification or “back to the city” trend may be limited, or is bypassing high-poverty neighborhoods.
Specifically, Cortright and Mahmoudi (2014) find that 69 percent of census tracts with high poverty
levels (30%) in 1970 still had high poverty levels in 2010. Aliprantis, Fee, and Oliver (2014) examine
patterns of tract-level income change between 1980 and 2010 and find considerable stability in tractlevel income quartiles over time. However, they also find that tract-level income growth varied widely
by metropolitan characteristics, as tracts that transitioned from poor to non-poor were more likely to be
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located in growing metropolitan areas that were relatively large and densely populated and which
experienced greater immigration.
In addition to the gentrification literature, there is also a growing literature on the role of
immigrants in reversing the declining population of inner cities and supporting the economic
revitalization of urban neighborhoods. For example, Chicago’s small population increase between 1990
and 2000—a reversal of three decades of decline—was driven by large increases in foreign born
populations. Some scholars highlight the positive impact of immigration for inner city neighborhoods.
For example, Sampson (2008) shows that neighborhoods with a higher share of foreign born residents
have lower rates of violent crime. Also, Portes and Zhuo (1992) find that high levels of social capital in
tight immigrant ethnic enclaves can lead to greater entrepreneurship among some immigrant groups.
However, as Bates (1997, 2011) points out, significant barriers remain that limit immigrant and minority
entrepreneurship such as access to capital.
Given the potentially conflicting evidence about demographic trends affecting the inner city and
the relative paucity of research on recent inner city employment trends, we argue that there is a need
for a comprehensive analysis of job growth in America’s inner cities over the past decade. Porter (1997)
recognized this need early on, but lamented that there was no single source of localized, workplacebased employment statistics to track the changing economic role of inner city neighborhoods and to
assess how much private investment “already recognized” the competitive potential of the inner city.
Now we have such a data source; namely the Local Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES)
(see below). Ultimately, this paper will use a descriptive approach that revisits some of the key
questions in the preceding literature. First, we assess the actual extent of job growth that has occurred
in America’s inner cities relative to suburban areas and CBDs between 2002 and 2011, highlighting key
differences by broad geographic regions, industrial sector, and tract poverty status. Next, we return to
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the question of inner city competitiveness by defining a new methodology for identifying which regions
have competitive inner cities and what distinguishes them from the rest of the metropolitan pack.
Finally, we test some of the predictions of the gentrification literature and build a simple descriptive
model of inner city job growth at the tract level.
3. Data Sources and Methodology
We primarily use data from the US Census Bureau’s Longitudinal Employment and Household
Dynamics (LEHD) dataset. Specifically we use special tabulations of the LEHD data created for local
transportation and workforce development analysis called the Local Origin-Destination Employment
Statistics (LODES) program. The dataset is available at a 2010 block-group-level geography. Total
employment and employment by broad industry sector from 2002 through 2011 is summarized to a
tract level for the purposes of this analysis. While the dataset is available for the most of the United
States, some states are missing from the analysis because of data non-availability for the full period of
analysis. These include Arizona, Arkansas, the District of Columbia, Mississippi , New Hampshire and
Massachusetts which began participation in the LEHD at various years throughout the period and
therefore do not figure in the current analysis.
While the LODES data is also available on a worker residence basis, we use workplace-based
counts of employment as we are primarily interested in the changing geography of employment
between inner-city tracts and other components of metropolitan areas. The LODES dataset is a
synthetic dataset derived from confidential data sources such as unemployment insurance records,
TIGER line files and additional administrative data from the US Census and the Social Security
Administration. Noise is then infused into the workplace totals to protect employer and employee
confidentiality. These data production methods and caveats should be considered while evaluating the
evidence presented in this analysis. For a more complete description of the LODES dataset and its
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differences with the standard Census products such as the American Community Survey (ACS) refer to
Graham et.al (2014).
While the LODES is a relatively new data source for examining employment dynamics at small
geographic scales, there is no reason to believe that it is inaccurate or that the statistical “fuzzing” used
to protect confidentiality would produce biased estimates. First, as Abowd et. al. (2009) describe the
noise introduced to the data does not vary by geographic location in a way that is systematically
correlated with our definition of inner-city verus suburab status.ii Second, the LODES is now widely used
in transportation planning and in the transportation literature (see (see Owen & Levinson, 2015; Schleith
& Horner, 2014).
3.1 Identifying the Inner City
As discussed above, while there is significant research on the competitiveness of inner cities, it is
very hard to find a commonly accepted definition in the literature as to what constitutes an inner-city
area. Generally speaking, inner cities are understood as relatively poor areas with high concentration of
minorities within large central cities. While nearly all scholars distinguish the inner city from suburban
areas and traditional downtowns, there is little agreement on the essential characteristics of inner-city
neighborhoods. Porter implies that these areas are “distressed neighborhoods, in which, in most cases,
African Americans and other people of color represent the majority of the population (Porter, 1997. p.
11)”. Yet, more recent studies, such as Hutton (2004), simply look at all non-downtown portions of the
central city. Ultimately, the literature lacks a systematic delineation of the geographic or jurisdictional
extent of inner cities. As a first approximation, we define inner cities as areas of the largest central city
or cities in a Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) that are not part of the Central Business District. To
identify the main central cities in each MSA, we consider the official set of Principal Citiesiii within an
MSA (as defined by the US Census) and select those principal cities that collectively make up more than
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half of the principal city population within the MSA. Such identification of main cities in an MSA
eliminates classifying older suburban satellite cities (e.g. Schamburg, IL) as inner cities but still retains
the flexibility of having multiple inner city clusters within an MSA. For example, in Minnesota both
Minneapolis and St. Paul are considered the main cities and the tracts that are not within the CBDs of
these cities are considered inner city areas. In general, a vast majority of the 281 MSAs considered in
this analysis have only one main central city from which we draw our definition of inner-city tracts.
Given the lack of consensus on how to define the inner city for data collection purposes, we use
two general methods. First, we take all census tracts within the largest(s) principal city that are outside
of the CBD. We call this the “broad” definition of inner-city. Next, we follow Porter’s original definition
and further narrow this set of tracts to those that meet the following criteria: a) the tract has a median
household income that is below 80 percent of the MSA median income in 2000; and b) the tract also has
an unemployment rate greater than 25% above the unemployment rate in 2000 (see Porter (1997),
footnote 1). We refer to this narrower definition as the “Porter definition.”
3.1.1 Identifying the CBD
In order to classify census tracts as inner-city or not, we needed to clearly define the central
business district (CBD) or downtown of each principal city. In addition to lack of definition of inner city,
there is also no accepted current definition and delineation of a CBD. The last known delineation of the
CBD was done in 1982 by the Census of Retail Trade. To update this identification we first identify all
employment centers in an MSA. We then identify the cluster of employment centers that overlap the
point definitions of CBD provided by Fee & Hartley (2011) and call them the central business districts
(CBDs) within the MSA.
The employment centers are identified using methods detailed by McMillen (2001, 2003).
Briefly, a locally weighted regression is constructed using the employment densities at a tract level. The
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weighting function is a smoothing function that accounts for the spatially nearest 50 percent of the
density values. A tract is identified as an employment center if the residuals are significantly greater
than 0, accounting for the standard error of the estimate. This non-parametric method has been used to
identify employment centers in a number of studies (Garcia-López, 2010; Suárez & Delgado, 2009).
Once the tracts that have a higher than expected residuals are identified within an MSA, a contiguity
matrix is constructed using ‘spdep’ (Bivand, 2015). The contiguity matrices converted to a graph, where
nodes are the identified census tracts and a pair of nodes have an edge if the corresponding contiguity
matrix element is non-zero using `igraph’ (Csardi & Nepusz, 2006). Once the graph is constructed,
standard graph theoretic methods are used to decompose the graph into maximally connected
components. If any of the census tracts within a maximally connected cluster overlaps with the CBD
point, then we designate the entire cluster a central business district.
[FIGURE 1 ABOUT HERE]
To conduct our descriptive analysis comparing metropolitan regions with competitive inner
cities to other regions, and for our tract-level determinants of inner city job growth we also draw upon
several other data sources. The two main sources of additional data beyond the LODES dataset are the
Smart Location Database (SLD) produced by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)iv and the
Building Resilient Regions (BRR) database. The BRR database is a comprehensive dataset on
demographic, economic, and policy variables for all metropolitan areas in the U.S. (mainly derived from
Census data) and was produced by the MacArthur Foundation’s Building Resilient Regions research
network (see Pastor et. al, 2009 for more information).
4. Employment Trends and the Competitiveness of Inner Cities
4.1 The Nature of Inner City Employment Change in the U.S. in the 2000s.
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Compared to the preceding two decades, the 2000s was a period of relatively stable job growth
for America’s inner cities. During the nine year period from 2002—just after a mild recession—to 2011
two years after the end of the Great Recession—inner city census tracts added 1.8 million net new jobs.
Surprisingly, this rate of growth (6.1 percent) was roughly comparable to the rate of growth observed in
suburban areas (6.9 percent). However, suburbs still added nearly twice as many total positions and
maintain the preponderance of all metropolitan jobs Over the study period, inner city areas grew faster
than non-metropolitan areas (2.3 percent) and CBDs, which declined by 1.6 percent. As indicated in
Table 1 below, the post-Great Recession period (2009-2011) was particularly favorable to inner cities as
its growth rate actually surpassed the suburban rate (3.6 versus 3.0) and nearly 1 in 3 jobs created
during this period was located in the inner city. While the more economically distressed parts of inner
cities, as identified by the Porter definition, experienced slower employment growth over the full period
from 2002-2011, they almost kept pace with the rest of the inner city and did keep pace with the
suburbs during the post-recession period, showing employment growth of 3%.
[TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE]
Given some concern in the literature that the “comeback cities” narrative is limited primarily to
only a select set of coastal cities such as New York, Washington, and San Francisco, we examined the
same employment trends in each of the nine census divisions across the country (see Figure 2a and 2b).
Looking at the full period, this observation holds somewhat. Although inner city growth was positive in
all divisions except the East North Central (which declined as a whole), it outpaced suburban areas in
only the Mid Atlantic (which includes New York) and the Pacific census divisions.
[FIGURE 2 ABOUT HERE]
In the post-recession period however, inner cities were considerably more competitive vis-à-vis the
suburbs throughout the country, growing faster in five out of nine divisions and rebounding strongly
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even in the rust-belt East North Central area. In this chart (Figure 2b) the outlier region seems to be
West South Central where suburban job growth consistently swamped both CBD and inner city areas.
Although this is a relatively small period, the post-recession evidence is indicative of a relatively urbanbased recovery.
While total employment increased within inner-city tracts in aggregate, there have been
significant industrial shifts occurring within inner cities as they continue to transition away from goods
producing sectors and towards relatively place-bound service sector industries. In Figure 3 we analyze
net employment change for the full period (2002-11) and the post-recession period for all of the tracts
defined as inner city for the U.S. as a whole. Not surprisingly, the greatest losses occurred in
manufacturing (-782,000 jobs), followed by construction (-224,000), which was particularly hard hit by
the housing crisis and recession. The strongest gaining industries were the so-called “eds and meds”
sectors of Health Care and Social Assistance and Educational Services, which added 1.1 million and
633,000 jobs respectively. This finding makes sense since many institutions such as universities and
hospitals were founded in the past century in inner-city neighborhoods, have remained in those
neighborhoods, and have proved resilient to the wider economic changes that affected the inner city
during the 1970s and 1980s. The economic role of universities and their expanding hospitals is critical in
areas like West Philadelphia (home to the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University) and Hyde
Park (home to the University of Chicago). Inner city areas also saw strong growth in the Accommodation
and Food Services (323,000) sector which includes restaurants and is consistent with the findings in the
gentrification literatures on the changing economic role of inner cities from spaces of production to
spaces of consumption.
[FIGURE 3 ABOUT HERE]
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Since our definition of inner city is quite broad, including all non-CBD portions of the largest
principal city in each MSA, we also sought to understand if the net positive employment growth was
limited to areas that were initially higher income enclaves within the city. To test this, we categorized
each census tract by its poverty status in 2000. Since much of the literature in the 1990s focused on
high poverty neighborhoods and declining employment therein, we also included the tract poverty
status in 1990.
[TABLE 2 ABOUT HERE]
As Table 2 indicates, the large majority of inner city job creation occurred in areas where less
than 20 percent of residents earned incomes below the poverty line (79% for 1990 and 73% for 2000).
In addition, lower poverty areas maintained a much larger share of total jobs (by a factor of two)
compared to high poverty tracts. What is interesting about this tabulation is that the figures for highpoverty tracts are positive at all, given all the preceding discussion of job flight and neighborhood
decline. Most interestingly is the fact that, while they only have a small share of total jobs, the growth
rate of tracts with extreme poverty (over 40 percent) was the faster than low-poverty tracts.
4.2 Inner city competitiveness at the metropolitan scale
The decade of the 2000s was significant in the long term economic trajectory of inner cities over
the past 40 years because it marked a reversal of the trend of large-scale job losses and decline. But
does this necessarily mean that inner cities are now more competitive locations for business expansion
and job growth compared to suburban areas? We revisit the question of inner city competitiveness by
exploring the nature of inner city job growth in nearly all metropolitan areas in the U.S. and attempting
to determine the extent of inner city competitiveness and the regional factors that influence the
growing competitiveness of inner cities in certain MSAs.
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However, the uneven pattern of metropolitan growth itself clearly plays a role for the prospects
of inner city change. In general, larger MSAs experienced larger total employment growth over the
study period. Places like San Antonio, TX and Los Angeles, CA experienced substantive growth in
metropolitan employment change and also experienced significant growth in inner city employment.
However, metropolitan area growth does not always coincide with employment growth in the inner city.
For example, in places like Houston and Dallas, TX while the inner city employment growth is positive,
suburban growth overshadows the inner city. Therefore, we wanted to develop a method of defining
inner city competitiveness that accounted for overall metropolitan growth and identified MSAs where
job growth was disproportionately focused on the inner city during the 2000s.
[FIGURE 4 ABOUT HERE]
To identify which inner cities are competitive over our study period, we examined the relative
change in the proportion of inner city employment within its metropolitan area (see Figure 4). Within
each quadrant we plot the 2002 inner city share and 2011 inner city share of total metropolitan area
employment. We then divide the whole data set into four groups based on whether or not total
employment in the metropolitan area grew or declined (horizontal axis) and whether there was net
positive inner city job growth or not (vertical axis). While there are a few inner cities that have grown
despite the overall metropolitan area decline (SE quadrant), the vast majority of observations with
positive inner city employment growth also had positive regional growth. However, since we are
interesting in “competitive” inner cities, we focus on those metropolitan areas where inner cities
increased their share of jobs. These metros are above the 45° line in the bottom right corner of Figure
4. Specifically, we find that 120 out of a total set of 281 metropolitan areas (43 percent) have
“competitive inner cities.” We label these metros as competitive inner cities and compare their
characteristics with the other metropolitan areas in the sample. A complete list of these metropolitan
17
areas is provided in Appendix A. The metropolitan areas that are on this list are quite diverse ranging
from large metros to more moderate size ones. In general, the change in the share of employment in
the inner city is modest between 2002 and 2011, except in a few metropolitan areas.
Next, we compared these metropolitan areas with competitive inner cities to the rest of the
metros in the sample (see Figure 5). There is no difference between proportions of jobs in the
concentrated employment sub-centers between the two groups (as defined using McMillen 2003’s
method). However, high wage job growth both at the metro level and within the inner city stand out.
Competitive inner cities, in general, have experienced significant high wage job growth. Further research
is needed to address the question of whether this high wage job growth is a cause or an effect of
“competitiveness”.
[FIGURE 5 ABOUT HERE]
Metropolitan areas that have a lower black-white dissimilarity index—an indicator of
segregation at the metro-level—are more likely to have a competitive inner city. This is consistent with
the work of Pastor (Pastor, Drier, & al., 2000) and others who argue that regions where segregation is
less pronounced are more likely to produced balanced economic growth. We find that metros with
competitive inner cities have lower average black-white dissimilarity indices in 2000s compared to their
peers. However, the two groups have the similar distribution of dissimilarity indices with the foreign
born and native born, suggesting smaller influence of cross-national migration on competitive inner
cities.
Competitive inner city metropolitan areas had higher poverty rates in 2000, suggesting higher
poverty rates are not a constraint for economic development. There are only small differences in the
means of the median household income between the two groups. However, the means tell only part of
the story. The distributions are quite different. The median income distribution of the competitive
18
metropolitan areas is skewed to the left compared to the rest of the metros. Furthermore, higher
poverty rates, especially in inner cities might suggest redevelopment opportunities. Metropolitan areas
with competitive inner cities, on average, have higher average job accessibility. Accessibility is
measured at the block group level as the percentage of the jobs in the metro that can be accessed
within a 45 minute commute. This difference disappears when we compare the average block group
accessibility based on transit service. While we should expect to see higher competitiveness of metros
with high quality transit, this result is likely due to persistent low levels of transit provision and usage in
the United States.
Neither the population distribution, nor the proportion of creative jobs is significantly different
in the competitive metropolitan areas from the rest of the metros. The Theil Index of population density
represents skewness in the population density distribution. Higher Theil index metropolitan areas are
metros with some tracts with large population densities and the rest very low population density, while
a lower Theil index means the metropolitan area has relatively uniform population density. The results
suggest that concentrations of density are not different between the two groups of the metropolitan
areas.
We repeated the metropolitan level competitiveness analysis using the narrower Porter
definition of inner city tracts. Under this definition, there were fewer MSAs with competitive inner cities
(85 compared to 144). We also repeated the difference of means tests described above and include the
results in Appendix C. Figure 6 below illustrates the geographic distribution of MSAs with competitive
inner cities using both definitions.
[FIGURE 6 ABOUT HERE]
19
5. Tract-Level Drivers of Inner City Employment Growth
What are the characteristics of inner city neighborhoods that experience employment growth?
In this section, we present census tract-level regressions to examine the correlates of employment
growth during the 2000s. Our sample consists of the non-CBD census tracts of 106 largest principal
cities (within each metropolitan area) which had at least 30 census tracts once the CBD tracts were
excluded. We use 2010 census tract boundaries and consider the degree to which changes in log
employment from 2002 to 2011 are associated with a number of explanatory variables.
[1]
∆empi,c = αc + βd distCBDi,c + βe empi,c + βr resi,c + βl loci,c + βp poli,c + ϵi ,
where the dependent variable, ∆empi,c represents the change in the log of census tract employment
from 2002 to 2011 in tract,i, in city, c. The explanatory variables are, αc , a city fixed effect, distCBDi,c,
the log of the distance (in miles) from the centroid of the tract to the centroid of the CBD, empi,c, the
log of tract-level employment in 2002, resi,c, a vector of variables describing the residential
characteristics of the tract, loci,c, a vector of location factors which measure the accessibility of the tract
vis-à-vis the transportation network, poli,c, a vector describing whether certain place-based policies
were in effect in the tract, and an error term, ϵi .
The vector of residential characteristics, resi,c , includes the log of the tract population in 2000,
the change in the log of the sum of the population in all contiguous tracts, the poverty rate in 2000, the
change in the share of the population with a college or higher degree, the share of occupied housing
units in which the residents moved in between 2000 and 2010, and the share of the housing units that
were built between 2000 and 2010. These variables are included to capture both the overall socioeconomic characteristics of the tract itself as well as provide some indicators of gentrification by
20
accounting for recent building activity and recent changes in population around the tract in question. To
assess the impact of immigration on job growth we also include a variable that measures the change in
the share of the foreign born population between 2000 and 2010.
The vector of location factors, loci,c, includes the gross residential density of the tract measured
in housing units per acre, an entropy index of the industrial diversity of the tract, a measure of
automobile accessibility (the number of automobile-oriented transit road links per square mile), a
measure of pedestrian accessibility (the number of pedestrian-oriented road links per square mile), and
an indicator of whether the tract contains any public transit stops. The public transit indicator variable is
only available for 55 of the 106 cities in our sample. We set this variable equal to negative one for all
observations in the cities for which it is missing. Inclusion of city fixed effects ensure that ensure that
the estimation of the coefficient on this variable will be due to within-city variation in public transit stop
presence in cities for which we do have public transit data.
The vector of placed-based policies, poli,c, includes an indicator of whether the tract contains
any Low Income Housing Tax Credit developments and an indicator of whether the tract has been
designated an Empowerment Zone or Renewal Community.v Appendix B contains a table of descriptive
statistics for all independent variables in our regression sample.
Table 3 presents our tract-level regression results aimed at revealing some of the correlates of
non-CBD inner city employment growth. The table shows four specifications, with an increasing number
of explanatory variables. The specification in column (1) includes on the log of the distance from the
centroid of the tract to the CBD. The coefficient of 0.066 means that tracts that are twice as far from
the CBD have on average 4.6 more log points of employment growth (0.69 * 0.066 = 0.046). The
specification in column (2) adds the log of initial year (2002) employment. This variable is added to help
mitigate potential measurement error problems in the tract-level employment data. Adding this control
21
reduces the magnitude of the coefficient on the distance to CBD measure. Column (3) adds local
demand variables in the form the log of the tracts own initial year population and the change in the log
of the population of all of the tracts that share a border with the tract. In this specification, changes in
the local area (neighboring tract) population are correlated with tract-level employment growth. The
coefficient of 0.535 implies that, on average, a 10 log point increase in neighboring tract population is
associated with a 5 log point increase in own-tract employment.
[TABLE 3 ABOUT HERE]
The specification in column (4) contains our full set of tract-level explanatory variables. The first
thing that stands out is that the sign of the coefficient on the log of distance to CBD is now negative and
is not statistically different from zero. Conditional on all the other explanatory variables, employment
growth is negatively correlated with distance to the CBD. In other words, controlling for other factors,
neighborhoods closer to downtown added jobs at a faster rate than those further away, indicating the
importance of proximity to the largest concentration of employment in region. The log of initial year
(2000) tract population is now positively related to employment growth. The change in the log
population of neighboring tracts is still positively related to employment growth but conditional on all
the other explanatory variables the coefficient has dropped to about half of its value in column (3).
Higher poverty rate tracts are associated with less employment growth. All else equal, 10 percentage
points higher poverty rate is associated with 2.4 fewer log points of employment growth. Thus
neighborhood poverty still seems to be a deterrent to local employment growth.
The coefficient on the change in the share with a college degree is positive but not statistically
different from zero. While we would expect that this would be an important variable, given the
literature on gentrification and then urban preferences of the creative class, it is likely that the effect of
this variable is usurped by the next two variables, which are also indicators of residential changes.
22
Specifically, the share of occupied housing units with residents that moved in during the 2000s (an
indicator or recent migration to the area) is positively correlated with employment growth. This higher
residential turnover is consistent with urban re-development. Further evidence that employment
growth and re-development are correlated comes from the positive coefficient on the share of housing
units built during the 2000s. It appears that tracts with 10 percentage points higher share of units built
during the 2000s have, on average, 6.6 logs point higher employment growth. Lastly, our measure of
immigration is not significant in any specification. This is interesting given the literature on immigrant
ethnic enclaves and business growth . While we can’t conclude that immigration does not lead to job
growth in some neighborhoods, our analysis suggests that other factors outweigh the impact of recent
immigration.
The coefficient on residential density is negative, though not statistically significant. This is not
surprising as tracts which have mostly residential uses (and thus higher density) have little room left for
commercial land-uses and the jobs located therein. Industrial diversity –measured as the 5 category
employment entropy index—is positively correlated with employment growth over the period.
Automobile accessibility shows a positive correlation with employment growth while pedestrian
accessibility is negatively correlated with employment growth. Finally, there is a statistically significant
association between the presence of a public transit stop and employment growth. The coefficient
implies that tracts containing public transit stops saw roughly 6.7 log-points higher employment growth
than those without a public transit stop.
There is no clear association between the presence of Low Income Housing Tax Credit
developments and employment growth. There is a marginally statistically significant positive
relationship between Empowerment Zone / Renewal Community status and employment growth. While
we do not consider this strong causal evidence of the effectiveness of EZ/RC policies, it is consistent with
23
the findings of recent research (Busso, Gregory, & Kline, 2010) . On average, tracts in these programs
saw about 5.3 log-points higher employment growth than other inner city tracts.
The specification in column (4) has an R-squared of 0.23, meaning that our full set of
explanatory variables can explain about a quarter of the variation in tract-level employment growth. In
specifications without the city fixed effect (not shown) the R-squared drops to 0.19 and without the log
of initial year employment it drops to 0.12. The R-squared drops slightly in our model using the
narrower, Porter inner-city definition (0.21) shown in column 5.
Column (5) presents estimates of the same specification as column (4), but the sample is limited
to the set of economically distressed inner-city tracts which meet the Porter definition of having a
median household income lower than 80% of that of the MSA and an unemployment rate greater than
1.25 times the MSA average in 2000. Most of the estimates in column (5) are similar to those shown in
column (4) for the broadly defined sample of inner city tracts. There are 6 main differences. First, we
observe an increased conditional correlation between employment growth and proximity to the CBD;
the coefficient roughly doubles in magnitude. Second, there is an increased conditional correlation
between year 2000 population. Third, we see a decreased conditional correlation with the poverty rate.
This makes sense as there is less variation in poverty rates across the tracts in the Porter definition as it
selects on lower income status. This means that among these distressed tracts, variation in the poverty
rate is less predictive of employment growth than among the full sample. Forth, there is less of a
conditional correlation between the change in the share of occupied housing with new residents;
possibly indicating less of an association between gentrification and employment growth among
distressed tracts. Fifth, the relationship between pedestrian accessibility and employment growth
appears to be slightly more negative. Sixth, we observe an increased conditional correlation between
employment growth and Empowerment Zone / Renewal Community status. Thus, among distressed
24
tracts, EZ/EC status is associated with 8.4 log points higher employment growth than other distressed
inner city tracts.
6. Conclusion
For America’s inner cities as a whole, the decade of the 2000s stands in stark relief compared to
the 1980s and 1990s in terms of job growth. Using a dataset that was unavailable in the past (LODES),
we show that inner city tracts (those in the non-CBD portions of the large central cities) added 1.8
million jobs between 2002 and 2011. This trend is not just limited to a few cities and regions, as inner
city growth was positive in nearly all census divisions and even outpaced suburban growth rates in some
areas. The post-recession period has been even stronger for inner cities. While the overall national
trend is encouraging given the scale of job losses in previous decades, this growth is probably not
enough to declare a “renaissance” in urban America.
When we compare job growth between all inner-city tracts and only those inner cities tracts that
exhibited higher levels of economic distress (i.e. Porter’s method), some interesting facts emerge. First,
the positive growth trend is still evident, put is less pronounced. This means that distressed inner-city
areas still face significant barriers, compared to similarly located, but less distressed urban
neighborhoods. As our tract-level models indicate, these highly distressed areas are less likely to receive
the positive effects of gentrification (i.e. increased local service sector jobs) and that the job growth that
has occurred in these areas are tied to different drivers (as we discuss below).
Turning to the question of competitiveness, regional growth differentials are clearly important, as
the literature on city-suburban dependence indicates. It is not surprising that New York City and San
Francisco have much higher inner city employment growth as they are located within strong, growing
25
metropolitan areas. However, in places like Dallas and Houston which also grew, suburban employment
continues to outpace inner city employment, suggesting important differences in characteristics and
policies of the metropolitan areas that result in competitive inner cities. Yet, places known for their
suburban dominance such as Los Angeles and San Antonio showed strong inner city resurgence in the
last decade. Thus, competitive inner cities emerged in some unlikely places. We find that while
competitive inner cities are no longer the exception, they are also not universal. Two fifths (144 out of
281) of the metros studied in this analysis have seen both increases in overall employment as well as
share of inner city employment. Much of the growth in these metropolitan areas is driven by growth in
the high wage sectors.
There are also important differences in the nature of job growth by sector. The inner city
resurgence has been led by the so-called “Eds and Meds” of Health Care and Educational Services; at the
same time losses in manufacturing and construction jobs continue in the inner city reflecting the twin
trends of globalization and suburbanization of manufacturing. Within inner cities, access to physical
infrastructure (e.g. proximity to CBD, transit), as well as social infrastructure (e.g. population increases
nearby) confer significant advantage for job growth. However, if access to infrastructure is one of the
competitive strengths of the inner cities, it is not reflected in the job growth in the sectors that largely
depend on infrastructure (such as manufacturing). Instead, the job growth is driven by residentiary
sectors such as food services supporting some claims from the gentrification literature that inner city job
growth is fueled at least in part by recent residential growth. Yet for distressed inner-city areas, job
growth is driven less by local consumption but rather by growth in anchor institutions that make up the
“Eds and Meds” sector.
However, our findings also indicate that inner city job growth tends to be greater in areas that
are relatively less poor. Thus, high poverty neighborhoods still seem to have major barriers that limit
26
more robust employment gains. It is here that there may be a continued role for government
intervention. Our finding that tracts designated as either an Empowerment Zone or Renewal
Community grew faster, on average, than other tracts suggests that economic development strategies
that are targeted to high-poverty areas can play a role. Our results suggest that, overall, inner city areas
do have real advantages as locations for employment and are increasingly viewed as an attractive
residential location.
27
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30
Tables and Figures
Table 1. Employment Change in CBD, Inner City, Suburban and Non-metro tracts, 2002-11.
Year
Total Employment
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
CBD
9,806,579
9,466,413
9,368,606
9,391,107
9,502,148
9,462,838
9,422,301
9,405,450
9,599,146
9,654,338
Inner City
29,699,043
29,406,696
29,688,362
30,143,171
30,512,600
31,030,945
31,082,578
30,425,117
30,796,523
31,521,499
Inner CityPorter
9,163,969
8,959,707
9,040,566
9,140,514
9,137,376
9,279,914
9,181,937
9,025,946
9,175,827
9,292,356
Suburban
59,207,009
59,122,731
60,114,666
61,722,807
62,976,328
64,129,684
64,323,119
61,460,391
61,733,541
63,296,946
Non-Metro
15,401,902
15,351,324
15,481,987
15,711,700
15,969,935
16,113,194
16,120,592
15,426,231
15,466,790
15,758,332
Net Employment
(152,241)
1,822,456
128,387
4,089,937
356,430
Change (2002-11)
% Change
-1.6%
6.1%
1.4%
6.9%
2.3%
Post-Recession Net
248,888
1,096,382
266,410
1,836,555
332,101
Change (2009-11)
% Change
2.6%
3.6%
3.0%
3.0%
2.2%
Share of US Emp.,
2002
8.6%
26.0%
8.0%
18.4%
51.9%
Share of US Emp.,
2011
8.0%
26.2%
7.7%
18.2%
52.6%
Note: Authors analysis of LODES data by tract-type for states with full sample (2002-11).
31
Total
114,114,533
113,347,164
114,653,621
116,968,785
118,961,011
120,736,661
120,948,590
116,717,189
117,596,000
120,231,115
6,116,582
5.4%
3,513,926
3.0%
Table 2. Inner city Employment Change by Tract Poverty Status
Employment Measure
Total Employment, 2002
% of Inner City Jobs, 2011
Total Employment, 2009
% of Inner City Jobs, 2011
Total Employment, 2011
% of Inner City Jobs, 2011
Net Employment Change
(2002-11)
% Change
Net Employment Change
(2009-11)
% Change
Tract Poverty Status, 1990
Low Poverty
High
Extreme
(<20%)
Poverty
Poverty
(>20%)
(>40%)
19,843,121
9,855,922
2,879,470
66.8%
33.2%
9.7%
20,581,454
9,843,663
2,936,604
67.6%
32.4%
9.7%
21,296,609
10,224,890 3,183,065
67.6%
32.4%
10.1%
Tract Poverty Status, 2000
Low
High
Extreme
Poverty
Poverty
Poverty
(<20%)
>20%
(>40%)
19,779,094 9,919,949 2,177,597
66.6%
33.4%
7.3%
20,440,333 9,984,784 2,206,598
67.2%
32.8%
7.3%
21,116,880 10,404,619 2,352,930
67.0%
33.0%
7.5%
1,453,488
368,968
303,595
1,337,786
484,670
175,333
7.3%
715,155
3.7%
381,227
10.5%
246,461
6.8%
676,547
4.9%
419,835
8.1%
146,332
3.5%
3.9%
8.4%
3.3%
4.2%
6.6%
Source: Authors analysis of Local Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES) data, 2002-2011.
32
Table 3: OLS Regression Results: Predictors of Tract-level Employment Growth, 2002-2011.
(1)
Variable
log Distance to CBD
(2)
(3)
(4)
0.066*** 0.037***
0.006
0.029***
-0.062***
(0.009)
(0.009)
(0.009)
(0.012)
(0.020)
-0.152***
-0.15***
0.202***
-0.223***
(0.006)
(0.006)
(0.007)
(0.013)
log Employment 2002
log Population 2000
Change in log pop in neighboring tracts, 2000-2010
0.076
(0.014)
(0.014)
0.535
***
(0.045)
Poverty Rate, 2000
0.257
Change in Share with College Degree, 2000-2010
Share of occupied housing with new residents, 20002010
Share of housing units built between 2000 and 2010
Residential density (Units/Acre)
Industrial diversity index (5 category entropy index)
Pedestrian Accessibility (links per square mile)
Public transit dummy (y/n)
Empowerment Zone/Renewal Community (y/n)
R
N
33
0.291***
(0.086)
-0.087
(0.107)
(0.169)
***
-0.089
(0.072)
(0.128)
0.105
0.165
(0.099)
(0.184)
0.247***
0.091
(0.065)
(0.112)
0.661***
0.593***
(0.066)
(0.156)
-0.001
-0.001
(0.001)
(0.001)
***
0.515***
(0.035)
(0.061)
0.010***
0.011***
(0.003)
(0.004)
0.008***
-0.014***
(0.002)
(0.003)
0.067
Low Income Housing Tax Credit Development (y/n)
(0.031)
-0.025
0.464
Automobile Accessibility (links per square mile)
***
0.18***
(0.042)
-0.24
2
***
-0.007
Change in Share Foreign Born, 2000-2010
Tract Sample Definition:
(5)
*
0.149
(0.041)
(0.152)
0.008
0.006
(0.014)
(0.022)
0.053*
0.084**
(0.031)
(0.038)
Broad
Broad
Broad
Broad
Porter
0.0753
0.1648
0.1864
11,837
11,837
11,837
0.2309
11837
0.2162
4518
Note: Robust standard errors in parentheses below estimate. *Significant at 10%. **Significant at 5%.
***Significant at 1%.
Figure 1. Delineation of Inner City Status in the Cleveland, MSA
34
Figure 2. Employment Change by Tract-Type and Census Division, Full Period and Post-Recession
Employment Growth (2002-2011)
30.0%
25.0%
20.0%
15.0%
10.0%
5.0%
CBD
0.0%
Inner City
Suburban
-5.0%
-10.0%
Census Division
7.0%
Employment Growth, 2009-2011
6.0%
5.0%
4.0%
3.0%
2.0%
1.0%
CBD
0.0%
Inner-city
-1.0%
Suburban
-2.0%
-3.0%
Census Division
35
Figure 3. Inner-City Employment change by Major Industry Sector (NAICS)- Full Period (2002-11) and
Post Recession (2009-11).
Net Employment Change
(1,000,000) (500,000)
-
500,000
1,000,000
1,500,000
Health Care and Social Assistance (62)
Educational Srvs. (61)
Accommodation and Food Srvs. (72)
Professional and Technical Srvs. (54)
Public Administration (92)
Finance and Insurance (52)
Other Services (81)
Management of Companies and Ent. (55)
Administrative and Support Srvs. (56)
Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation (71)
Full Period
(2002-11)
Mining and Extraction (21)
Transportation and Warehousing (48-49)
Post-Recession
(2009-11)
Agriculture (11)
Utilities (22)
Real Estate and Rental and Leasing (53)
Retail Trade (44-45)
Information (51)
Wholesale Trade (42)
Construction (23)
Manufacturing (31-33)
Source: Authors analysis of Local Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES) data, 2002-2011.
36
Source: Authors analysis of Local Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES) data, 2002-2011.
Figure 4. Defining Inner City Competitiveness: MSA Employment Change and the Change in Inner city
proportion of employment in 2002 and 2011.
Source: Authors analysis of Local Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES) data, 2002-2011.
37
Figure 5. Characteristics of Metropolitan Regions with Competitive Inner Cities (Broad Definition)
Versus All other Metros
38
Notes: Figure presents the difference in distribution of various indicators for metropolitan areas with competitive inner cities
and to the distribution for all other metropolitan areas. Sources: LODES (panel 1-3); Building Resilient Regions (BRR) Database
(panels 4-8); EPA Smart Location Database (Panels 9-11). All variables calculated at the metropolitan (CBSA) level. N=281.
Figure 6. Regions with Competitive Inner Cities using different definitions
39
A. Appendix: List of Regions with Competitive Inner Cities
Share of Employment
in the Inner City
(Broad)
Share of Employment in
the Inner City (Porter)
CBSA Name
2002
Competitive Inner City Regions in Both
Definitions
Ames, IA
Athens-Clarke County, GA
Blacksburg-Christiansburg-Radford, VA
Morgantown, WV
Lawrence, KS
Columbia, MO
Jackson, TN
Bowling Green, KY
Jackson, MI
Chattanooga, TN-GA
Springfield, IL
Springfield, OH
Atlantic City, NJ
Sumter, SC
Anchorage, AK
New Haven-Milford, CT
Salinas, CA
Lexington-Fayette, KY
New York-Northern New Jersey-Long
Island, NY-NJ-PA
2011
Difference
in Shares
2002
2011
Difference in
Shares
0.034
0.084
0.011
0.085
0.045
0.168
0.036
0.140
0.069
0.185
0.167
0.126
0.057
0.039
0.335
0.086
0.027
0.142
0.221
0.248
0.160
0.212
0.067
0.173
0.047
0.185
0.136
0.224
0.189
0.173
0.080
0.046
0.347
0.090
0.064
0.203
0.186
0.164
0.149
0.127
0.022
0.005
0.011
0.045
0.067
0.039
0.022
0.047
0.024
0.007
0.012
0.004
0.037
0.061
0.109
0.569
0.063
0.145
0.468
0.492
0.573
0.629
0.210
0.523
0.473
0.392
0.077
0.220
0.807
0.104
0.101
0.614
0.305
0.726
0.213
0.273
0.593
0.602
0.681
0.698
0.274
0.580
0.529
0.448
0.133
0.275
0.860
0.156
0.142
0.652
0.196
0.156
0.150
0.128
0.125
0.111
0.108
0.069
0.064
0.057
0.056
0.056
0.056
0.055
0.053
0.052
0.041
0.038
0.074
0.084
0.010
0.368
0.403
0.035
Sacramento--Arden-Arcade--Roseville, CA
Oshkosh-Neenah, WI
Longview, WA
Bakersfield, CA
Gadsden, AL
Florence, SC
Salem, OR
Corvallis, OR
Merced, CA
Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor, OH
Myrtle Beach-Conway-North Myrtle
Beach, SC
Chico, CA
Rome, GA
Florence-Muscle Shoals, AL
San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA
Auburn-Opelika, AL
Parkersburg-Marietta, WV-OH
Durham, NC
Utica-Rome, NY
Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, CA
Spartanburg, SC
Rochester, MN
Duluth, MN-WI
Longview, TX
Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville, FL
Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA
Fort Collins-Loveland, CO
Abilene, TX
Valdosta, GA
Columbus, GA-AL
0.082
0.067
0.012
0.052
0.180
0.017
0.272
0.211
0.064
0.099
0.100
0.147
0.015
0.052
0.198
0.021
0.286
0.223
0.085
0.126
0.018
0.080
0.003
0.001
0.018
0.004
0.014
0.012
0.021
0.027
0.195
0.291
0.048
0.316
0.380
0.095
0.364
0.373
0.177
0.146
0.229
0.325
0.082
0.348
0.411
0.125
0.393
0.401
0.203
0.171
0.035
0.034
0.033
0.033
0.031
0.030
0.029
0.028
0.026
0.025
0.088
0.001
0.050
0.021
0.107
0.121
0.021
0.123
0.091
0.028
0.026
0.051
0.008
0.070
0.107
0.061
0.030
0.113
0.097
0.120
0.091
0.001
0.057
0.021
0.120
0.132
0.047
0.169
0.107
0.036
0.044
0.052
0.010
0.093
0.127
0.067
0.037
0.122
0.120
0.125
0.003
0.000
0.007
0.000
0.013
0.011
0.026
0.046
0.016
0.008
0.018
0.001
0.002
0.023
0.020
0.006
0.006
0.009
0.023
0.005
0.320
0.165
0.253
0.323
0.371
0.294
0.167
0.396
0.213
0.314
0.095
0.498
0.275
0.294
0.304
0.231
0.339
0.583
0.343
0.642
0.344
0.188
0.276
0.345
0.392
0.314
0.187
0.414
0.231
0.332
0.111
0.513
0.290
0.308
0.318
0.244
0.352
0.594
0.353
0.652
0.024
0.023
0.023
0.022
0.020
0.020
0.020
0.019
0.018
0.018
0.016
0.015
0.015
0.014
0.014
0.013
0.012
0.011
0.010
0.010
42
Lakeland, FL
Pittsburgh, PA
Fayetteville, NC
State College, PA
Fairbanks, AK
Las Cruces, NM
Asheville, NC
Monroe, LA
Scranton--Wilkes-Barre, PA
Charleston-North Charleston, SC
Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJDE-MD
San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, CA
0.030
0.046
0.075
0.041
0.142
0.038
0.070
0.069
0.009
0.034
0.051
0.057
0.084
0.049
0.155
0.039
0.073
0.082
0.012
0.035
0.021
0.011
0.010
0.009
0.014
0.001
0.002
0.013
0.004
0.001
0.197
0.107
0.624
0.098
0.224
0.368
0.289
0.155
0.090
0.165
0.206
0.115
0.632
0.104
0.230
0.374
0.295
0.159
0.094
0.168
0.009
0.008
0.008
0.007
0.006
0.006
0.006
0.004
0.004
0.002
0.070
0.079
0.070
0.089
0.000
0.010
0.142
0.500
0.143
0.501
0.001
0.000
Additional Competitive Inner City Regions (Using Porter
Definition)
Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY
0.077
Alexandria, LA
0.043
Altoona, PA
0.045
Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA
0.037
Bloomington, IN
0.052
Bremerton-Silverdale, WA
0.039
Cumberland, MD-WV
0.021
Grand Forks, ND-MN
0.062
Grand Rapids-Wyoming, MI
0.059
Greenville, NC
0.062
Harrisonburg, VA
0.057
Honolulu, HI
0.167
Kalamazoo-Portage, MI
0.056
Killeen-Temple-Fort Hood, TX
0.056
Lancaster, PA
0.032
0.094
0.046
0.054
0.039
0.054
0.039
0.022
0.070
0.069
0.063
0.122
0.170
0.091
0.131
0.037
0.017
0.002
0.009
0.002
0.002
0.000
0.001
0.008
0.010
0.000
0.065
0.002
0.035
0.075
0.005
0.252
0.271
0.370
0.107
0.276
0.153
0.206
0.432
0.206
0.409
0.515
0.585
0.361
0.599
0.117
0.247
0.270
0.309
0.106
0.267
0.133
0.190
0.427
0.195
0.405
0.445
0.554
0.329
0.585
0.116
-0.005
-0.001
-0.061
-0.001
-0.009
-0.019
-0.016
-0.005
-0.011
-0.004
-0.070
-0.032
-0.032
-0.014
-0.001
43
Lubbock, TX
Madison, WI
Norwich-New London, CT
Ocala, FL
Ogden-Clearfield, UT
Pueblo, CO
Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-Goleta, CA
Visalia-Porterville, CA
Waco, TX
0.245
0.174
0.025
0.013
0.038
0.157
0.035
0.004
0.122
Additional Competitive Inner City Regions (Using Broad
Definition)
Albuquerque, NM
0.223
Ann Arbor, MI
0.269
Appleton, WI
NA
Bellingham, WA
0.052
Bend, OR
NA
Bismarck, ND
NA
Bloomington-Normal, IL
NA
Brownsville-Harlingen, TX
0.076
Cape Coral-Fort Myers, FL
NA
Clarksville, TN-KY
0.085
College Station-Bryan, TX
0.015
Colorado Springs, CO
0.177
Columbia, SC
0.033
Corpus Christi, TX
0.212
Davenport-Moline-Rock Island, IA-IL
0.093
Dubuque, IA
0.025
Glens Falls, NY
NA
Goldsboro, NC
0.161
Jacksonville, FL
0.178
0.250
0.220
0.028
0.016
0.049
0.186
0.035
0.006
0.143
0.006
0.047
0.002
0.003
0.011
0.029
0.001
0.002
0.021
0.782
0.572
0.122
0.293
0.106
0.484
0.430
0.256
0.463
0.775
0.522
0.121
0.284
0.098
0.450
0.424
0.251
0.420
-0.008
-0.050
-0.001
-0.009
-0.008
-0.034
-0.007
-0.005
-0.043
0.158
0.152
-0.065
-0.118
0.732
0.483
0.250
0.321
0.287
0.300
0.512
0.413
0.086
0.359
0.183
0.697
0.182
0.580
0.304
0.445
0.046
0.407
0.628
0.734
0.542
0.340
0.338
0.316
0.373
0.527
0.439
0.090
0.419
0.226
0.698
0.190
0.605
0.323
0.466
0.105
0.441
0.637
0.002
0.059
0.090
0.017
0.029
0.074
0.015
0.026
0.004
0.061
0.043
0.001
0.008
0.025
0.019
0.021
0.058
0.034
0.009
NA
NA
0.045
NA
NA
NA
-0.007
NA
NA
NA
0.075
NA
-0.002
NA
0.085
0.013
0.137
0.030
0.208
0.085
0.021
NA
0.000
-0.002
-0.040
-0.003
-0.005
-0.009
-0.004
NA
0.149
0.155
44
-0.012
-0.023
Johnson City, TN
Joplin, MO
Kokomo, IN
Lafayette, IN
Lake Charles, LA
Laredo, TX
Las Vegas-Paradise, NV
Logan, UT-ID
Louisville, KY-IN
Modesto, CA
Morristown, TN
Niles-Benton Harbor, MI
Ocean City, NJ
Oklahoma City, OK
Orlando, FL
Palm Coast, FL
Pocatello, ID
Portland-South Portland-Biddeford, ME
Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton, OR-WA
Port St. Lucie, FL
Providence-New Bedford-Fall River, RI-MA
Punta Gorda, FL
Redding, CA
Reno-Sparks, NV
Saginaw-Saginaw Township North, MI
St. Cloud, MN
Salt Lake City, UT
San Antonio, TX
San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA
Spokane, WA
Springfield, MO
NA
NA
NA
NA
0.060
0.058
0.030
0.135
0.076
0.086
0.165
0.021
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
0.079
0.048
0.021
0.118
0.066
0.086
0.151
0.021
NA
NA
NA
0.209
0.046
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
0.200
0.043
NA
NA
0.015
0.067
NA
NA
NA
NA
-0.002
-0.001
NA
0.058
NA
NA
0.134
0.113
0.154
0.120
0.147
0.059
0.071
0.103
-0.009
-0.003
0.013
0.066
0.058
NA
NA
0.019
-0.010
-0.009
-0.017
-0.010
0.000
-0.014
-0.001
0.000
NA
NA
0.116
0.104
0.152
0.116
0.134
0.059
0.059
0.092
45
-0.018
-0.009
-0.002
-0.004
-0.013
-0.001
-0.012
-0.012
0.338
0.122
0.265
0.416
0.277
0.674
0.231
0.249
0.413
0.289
0.077
0.014
0.028
0.567
0.161
0.392
0.530
0.148
0.260
0.159
0.128
0.069
0.562
0.449
0.199
0.361
0.302
0.650
0.179
0.235
0.637
0.405
0.162
0.386
0.449
0.315
0.716
0.250
0.319
0.421
0.293
0.078
0.020
0.061
0.576
0.163
0.628
0.537
0.150
0.272
0.210
0.136
0.088
0.593
0.468
0.230
0.394
0.304
0.690
0.198
0.240
0.641
0.066
0.040
0.121
0.033
0.038
0.042
0.018
0.070
0.008
0.003
0.002
0.006
0.033
0.009
0.002
0.236
0.007
0.001
0.012
0.050
0.008
0.019
0.031
0.019
0.031
0.032
0.002
0.040
0.019
0.005
0.005
Tuscaloosa, AL
Tyler, TX
Vineland-Millville-Bridgeton, NJ
Warner Robins, GA
Wenatchee, WA
Wilmington, NC
Winston-Salem, NC
Yakima, WA
Yuba City, CA
0.202
0.064
NA
0.188
0.063
NA
0.065
NA
NA
0.063
NA
0.106
0.105
0.051
0.044
-0.014
-0.002
-0.002
NA
0.087
0.102
0.048
0.036
46
-0.019
-0.003
-0.004
-0.008
0.446
0.449
0.340
0.240
0.159
0.443
0.600
0.237
0.229
0.459
0.452
0.371
0.269
0.165
0.448
0.612
0.243
0.239
0.013
0.003
0.031
0.030
0.005
0.004
0.012
0.006
0.010
Appendix B. Summary Statistics of Tract-level Data
Variable
Observations Mean
Std.
Dev.
0.697
0.760
1.430
0.546
0.221
Min
Max
Change in log Employment 2002-2011
11,837
0.062
-6.672 5.182
log Distance to CBD
11,837
1.526
-4.560 4.029
log Employment 2002
11,837
6.468
0
11.537
log Population 2000
11,837
8.092
1.609 9.865
Change in log Population of Neighboring Tracts 2000- 11,837
0.033
-1.497 5.093
2010
Poverty Rate 2000
11,837
0.183 0.136 0
0.932
Change in Share with College Degree 2000-2010
11,837
0.032 0.079 -1
0.872
Share of Occupied Housing Units with new Residents
11,837
0.706 0.124 0
1
2000-2010
Share of Housing Units Built 2000-2010
11,837
0.083 0.138 0
1
Residential Density (Units/Acre)
11,837
6.669 9.807 0.000 561.963
Industrial Diversity Index
11,837
0.466 0.242 0
1.000
Automobile Accessibility (links per square mile)
11,837
1.479 2.413 0
36.770
Pedestrian Accessibility (links per square mile)
11,837
16.114 5.946 0.245 46.595
Public Transit Stop in Tract?
8,806
0.914
0
1
Low Income Housing Tax Credit Development in
11,837
0.292
0
1
Tract?
Empowerment Zone/Renewal Community?
11,837
0.075
0
1
Note: Summary statistics are presented for inner city census tract sample. These are non-CBD tracts in
the largest principal cities for states with a full sample of data (2002-2011)
Appendix C. Characteristics of Metropolitan Regions with Competitive Inner Cities (Porter Definition)
Versus All other Metros
Notes: Figure presents the difference in distribution of various indicators for metropolitan areas with competitive inner cities
and to the distribution for all other metropolitan areas. Sources: LODES (panel 1-3); Building Resilient Regions (BRR) Database
(panels 4-8); EPA Smart Location Database (Panels 9-11). All variables calculated at the metropolitan (CBSA) level. N=252
48
i
Throughout this paper we use the terms region and metropolitan area interchangeably.
Specifically Abowd et. al. explain the noise inducing algorithm that the LEHD infrastructure files use as follows:
“First, every data item [establishment] is distorted by some minimum amount. Second, for a given workplace, the
data are always distorted in the same direction (increased or decreased) by the same percentage amount in
every period….Third, the statistical properties of this distortion are such that when the estimates are aggregated,
the effects of the distortion cancel out for the vast majority of the estimates, preserving both cross-sectional and
time series analytical validity.” (Abowd et. al. 2009, p.184)
iii
Principal Cities are defined for each MSA by the Census Bureau as the largest city in the MSA. Additional cities
may qualify to be a principal city, if it is a census designated place or incorporated place with more than 250,000
residents and 100,000 workers or a place whose employment exceeds the population and both are at least 10,000.
iv
http://www.epa.gov/smartgrowth/smartlocationdatabase.htm
v
For the list of tracts that were included in EZ/RCs see
http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/program_offices/comm_planning/economicdevelopment/programs/.
ii
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