Intrametropolitan Employment Structure: Polycentricity, Scatteration, Dispersal and Chaos in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, 1996-2001

Richard Shearmur, William Coffey, Christian Dube and Rémy Barbonne
Additional contact information
Richard Shearmur: INRS-UCS, 385 Sherbrooke east, Montreal, Quebec H2X IE3, Canada, richard.shearmur@ucs.inrs.ca
William Coffey: Departement de Geographie, Université de Montréal, C. P. 6128, Succursale Centre-Ville, Montreal, Quebec H3C 3J7, Canada, william.coffey@umontreal.ca
Christian Dube: INRS-UCS, 385 Sherbrooke east, Montreal, Quebec H2X IE3, Canada, christian.dube@ucs.inrs.ca
Rémy Barbonne: INRS-UCS, 385 Sherbrooke east, Montreal, Quebec H2X IE3, Canada, remy.barbonne@ucs.inrs.ca

Urban Studies, 2007, vol. 44, issue 9, 1713-1738

Abstract: There is little consensus on where and how employment is decentralising in metropolitan areas. However, a number of key processes have been brought to light, and different cities have tended to display different processes: strong CBDs, suburban polynucleation, job dispersal, scattering, edgeless cities and perhaps 'keno capitalism'. This paper explores the distribution and growth of employment at a fine spatial scale. It is shown that, at this scale, there are very dynamic processes of growth and decline throughout metropolitan areas, but that these processes are organised at a wider scale by stable employment centres and by links between these centres. The structures and processes thus revealed suggest that the spatial economy of metropolitan areas should be approached as a chaotic system. From an empirical perspective, this means that, depending on the scale of analysis and the way data are considered, polynucleation, dispersal and chaos are all observed: this may partly explain the lack of consensus in the literature. The only process not evident within Canadian cities is scattering, but this process may in fact be occurring within some areas identified as suburban employment zones.

Date: 2007
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1080/00420980701426640 (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:urbstu:v:44:y:2007:i:9:p:1713-1738

DOI: 10.1080/00420980701426640

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Urban Studies from Urban Studies Journal Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().