The Impact of Airports on US Urban Employment Distribution

Stephen J Appold
Additional contact information
Stephen J Appold: Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise, Kenan-Flagler Business School, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3440, USA

Environment and Planning A, 2015, vol. 47, issue 2, 412-429

Abstract: The influence of airports on the distribution of employment within fifty-one large US metropolitan areas is measured in the context of three important elements of urban spatial structure: centers, corridors, and clusters. Analysis of tract-level census data for 2000 using spatial regression models for each metropolitan area revealed that central cities have a varying, but generally strong, effect on the distribution of metropolitan employment, as do highways and employment subcenters; favored quarters had less certain impacts while the airport influence was weaker and more variable among regions. Regressing metropolitan airport-anchored distance-decay parameters on a series of regional explanatory factors suggests that airport cities develop primarily as cities expand outward rather than as a direct consequence of air transportation. These results inform plans relying upon airports to help shape and perhaps accelerate regional development.

Keywords: airport cities; employment location; urban structure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/a130114p (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envira:v:47:y:2015:i:2:p:412-429

DOI: 10.1068/a130114p

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Environment and Planning A
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().