Jobs-Housing Balance And Urban Traffic

Nowadays, the problems of traffic congestion and long time/distance commute, as well as environment issue are all gain lots attention. The serious traffic problem makes researchers propose policy about distributing residents and job opportunities reasonable. These policy aims at making areas jobs-housing balance, thus reducing commute time and distance, relieving traffic congestion and improving environment quality.However, there is no consensus about jobs-housing balance. Different research area and method may lend to different conclusion. And there are many arguments. One is the effect of this planning policy:double workers family would make residents choice more complex; frequent job change may reduce the possibility of jobs-housing balance; the decline of the proportion of commute in the entire traffic; house price; preferences of a particular kind of house. These issues make jobs-housing balance a controversial policy. Second, the necessity of this policy is disputable. The co-location hypothesis believes that jobs and houses would tend to be balance by themselves, so policy intervention is not necessary. Third, the feasibility of jobs-housing balance is also disputable since shortening commute distance is not the only factor people consider in residence choice.The paper reviews researches about jobs-housing balance and discusses three aspects of it. There are six chapters in this paper:the first chapter is introduction. This chapter mainly explains the background, significance and technological route of this research, as well as introducing jobs-housing balance. In Literature Review chapter, this paper concludes the researches from home and abroad, explains the concept, research area and method of jobs-housing balance. The third, four and five chapters bases on empirical research in Shanghai (areas within the outer ring road). In these chapters, this paper discusses and analyses the data process, the jobs-housing balance test and influence factors issues. Finally, on the basis of conclusion and empirical research, this paper responds some arguments about jobs-housing balance. Based on a regression model and GIS analysis, we have some conclusions:1) the jobs-housing balance is an efficient policy to reduce commute time. A more balance jobs-housing relationship is positive to reducing commute time. We cannot deny the effect of this policy just because of other influence. On the contrary, we should realize more factors can be considered when jobs-housing balance is applied.2) the Intervention of market to jobs-housing relationship is limited, and some reasonable policy is necessary. Since the house and labor market in China is "imperfect", the co-location of jobs and house does not likely happen in Chinese cities. When planning and development manage try to "give certain workers certain houses", then planning and management is positive in improving jobs-housing relationship and reducing commute time.3) house price has positive influence on jobs-housing balance. In high HPI areas, local workers cannot afford house around their companies, so they have to find house further. This makes the jobs-housing relationship of local workers tend to be imbalance. And in low HPI areas, since local workers can afford houses nearby, they are easier to reach balance.4) as to Shanghai, accessibility has positive influence on jobs-housing balance. The better accessibility the area, the more it balance. This paper does not consider public traffic, however, therefore this conclusion need to be further improved.