According to Brookings Institution, Dallas is the Third "Most Decentralized" City in U.S.

Even as the Dallas City Council considers spending half a million on yet another downtown Dallas master plan, it's worth noting a report released morning by the Brookings Institution that lists Dallas as one of the "Most Decentralized" major cities in the U.S. Which is to say: Sixty-seven percent of...

By Robert Wilonsky

April 6, 2009

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Even as the Dallas City Council considers spending half a million on yet another downtown Dallas master plan, it's worth noting a report released morning by the Brookings Institution that lists Dallas as one of the "Most Decentralized" major cities in the U.S. Which is to say: Sixty-seven percent of folks living in the Dallas area work more than 10 miles away from "the city center," which puts Dallas ahead of only Detroit (77.4 percent) and Chicago (68.7 percent) on Brookings' list. And, according to Job Sprawl Revisited: The Changing Geography of Metropolitan Employment, that kind of "rapid decentralization" has "implications for a range of policy issues -- from housing to transportation to economic development -- and should be taken into account as metro areas work to achieve more productive, inclusive, and sustainable growth and, in the near term, economic recovery."

The report's author, Elizabeth Kneebone, offers further details in an accompanying Q&A, in which she says that job sprawl to the suburbs "can undermine the economic health of cities and regions by boosting energy consumption, adding to building costs, increasing commuting times and isolating low-income and minority workers in the urban core from employment opportunities in the outlying areas."

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