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Title
Cars Not Geography: Job Accessibility and Reconceptualizing Spatial Mismatch in Detroit
Author Joe Grengs
Abstract
Transportation scholars are challenging traditional formulations of the spatial mismatch hypothesis because it disregards the considerable difference between travel modes. This case study of the Detroit metropolitan region uses 2000 census data and a gravity-based model of transportation accessibility to test differences in jobs access among places and people, and provides support for recent calls for reconceptualizing spatial mismatch. It shows that even though Detroit experiences the greatest distance between blacks and jobs of any region in the country, most central-city neighborhoods offer an advantage in accessibility to jobs compared to most other places in the metropolitan region - as long as a resident has a car. Policies aimed at helping carless people gain access to automobiles may be an effective means of improving the employment outcomes of inner-city residents.
DOI: 10.1177/0739456X9301200302
© 1993 Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning
Locational Models, Geographic Information and Planning Support Systems
Britton Harris
Michael Batty
Geographic information systems (GIS) are becoming widespread in management and planning, affecting the very organization and operation of the planning process itself. In this paper we address the problems and potential of such systems, particularly in relation to the analytical, predictive, and prescriptive models on which strategic planning processes are based. Current GIS are not rooted in the sorts of functions which drive these processes and here we will identify the difficulties and possibilities for developing more appropriate GIS which are sensitive to the simulation, optimization, and design activities which define spatial planning. To this end we will describe the development of planning support systems (PSS) in which a wide array of data, information, and knowledge might be structured, and within which GIS develop ment must take place. We will identify the sorts of urban system and locational models which characterize strategic planning and whose data-demands might be accommodated using GIS. Our critique of GIS is positive and constructive in that we are concerned to embed GIS into planning processes in the most appropriate way. In conclusion we will identify a series of requirements which PSS must meet.