Categorizing Urban Form for the Largest Metro Regions in the U.S. Using the Excessive Commuting Framework

The degree to which U.S. cities, metro regions, and general urbanized areas have distinct centres of economic activity has been a matter of debate for many decades. In the jobs–housing literature, there is related debate about whether having many distinct mixed-use centres in cities leads to longer or shorter commutes. The excess commuting framework has been increasingly refined and applied to assess urban areas' jobs–housing balance. The framework has expanded over the years but an issue in the present research is whether its various theoretical measurements and efficiency calculations might be used to assess the degree of poly- or mono-centricity of a region, thereby contributing to debates about what kind of urban form facilitates shorter commutes. In this paper, a suite of excess commuting (EC) measures are calculated for fifty-three of the largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) in the U.S. From there a hierarchical clustering approach is developed and applied to demonstrate which of these metrics are most useful in describing urban form. We examine how these metrics perform for particular built environments, which gives further insights into commuting and land use trends. Results of the research show how various urban forms have specific commuting outcomes: specifically, that polycentric urban forms have shorter average commute distances than sprawling ones. This should inform policy questions about the most effective land-use planning strategies to pursue in efforts to manage travel demand via built environment interventions.