Essays in urban economics: Perspectives on spatial mismatch

My dissertation integrates two recent trends---decentralization of jobs and increasing immigration---in the context of the spatial mismatch hypothesis. The primary insight of the spatial mismatch hypothesis is to suggest a linkage between the decentralization of jobs in American cities and the adverse labor market outcomes for central city minorities. My research broadens the focus of previous studies on spatial mismatch by examining the experience of several minority groups---blacks, Hispanics, and immigrants---in today's U.S. cities.; In my first of three essays, I study whether or not the spatial mismatch between housing locations and job locations affects minorities' employment. Based on aggregate data for 276 cities in 2000, I find that blacks, immigrants and Hispanics experience adverse labor market outcomes from spatial mismatch but that whites do not. Blacks labor market outcomes are also negatively correlated with increases in immigrants and Hispanics.; My second study focuses on employment outcomes in four cities under much immigration pressure: Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and Houston. I examine the extent to which the spatial structure of employment in polycentric cities impacts the separation between place of work and place of residence, hereafter termed "separation." There are three main results from my second study. I find different patterns between central city and suburban workers, and different patterns for blacks and whites. However, only in Chicago are the coefficients on the access variables larger in magnitude for blacks than whites. Immigrants and Hispanics have an impact on blacks' separation in all four study metropolitan areas.; In my third study, I examine the determinants of commuting time for low income workers in the same four large metropolitan areas. Based on individual-level data, I develop commuting-based tests about spatial mismatch. The inquiry involves examining the sign of coefficients on two important variables, residential location and industry sector. I find evidence that blacks, Hispanics and immigrants experience spatial mismatch in Chicago and New York, but not in Los Angeles or Houston. The evidence also shows that immigrants experience more spatial mismatch than do blacks in New York in 1990.