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OCR for page 148
Jobs, Migration, and
Emerging Urban Mismatches
JOHN D. K ASARDA
Spatial disparities in economic growth and corresponding migra-
tion adjustments have been constant features of our nation's devel-
opment. As more efficient transportation and communication tech-
nologies evolve, modes of production organization and services are
transformed; labor and natural resource requirements of industry
change; and locational advantages shift, with new areas of oppor-
tunity rising while others decline. America's people, in turn, have
tended to follow opportunity. In particular, this tendency has been
the case for our nation's disadvantaged who historically have fled
areas experiencing economic distress (often characterized by a sub-
stantial labor surplus relative to jobs) for areas of better opportunity.
Indeed, it is not mere chance the three great symbols of opportunity
for the disadvantaged in America all represent migration the Statue
of Liberty, the underground railway, and the covered wagon.
One consequence of the constant search of Americans for eco-
nomic opportunity and a better life is that cities, suburbs, non-
metropolitan areas, and entire regions have frequently experienced
uneven demographic growth. Before World War IT the metropolitan
areas of the Northeast and Midwest contained the majority of the
nation's inclustrial locational advantages (excellent deep-water ports,
extensive railroad and inland waterway systems, well-developed inter-
and intrametropolitan highways, proximity to rich coal deposits,
ubiquitous public utilities, a diverse and relatively better-educated
148
OCR for page 149
JOBS, MIGRATION, AND EMERGING URBAN MISMATCHES
149
labor force, and strong local markets). Such externalities provided
firms locating in metropolitan areas of the North with competitive
cost and market advantages that allowed them to expand much faster
than their counterparts in more isolated, less-developed regions of the
South and West. In fact, as late as 1950, more than 70 percent of
all manufacturing jobs were in the Northeast and Midwest, mostly
concentrated in and around the largest cities.
Since World War IT a number of economic, political, and tech-
nological forces have combined to accelerate industrial restructuring
and shift the nation's employment growth pole first to the West
and then to the South. The rapid postwar growth of aerospace,
defense, solid-state electronics, and other advanced technology in-
dustries, together with expanding construction and services, fueled
the economies of the Far West, especially California. Growth of these
industries was instrumental in attracting over 3 million migrants to
California alone between 1945-1960 (Bureau of the Census, 1975b).
With diversified economic expansion continuing in the West, the
region's total employment doubled during 1960 1985. Nevertheless,
the South emerged in the 1960s as the nation's leader in absolute
employment gains. Between 196~1985, the South added 17 million
jobs to its economy, compared with a growth of just over 11 million
in the West. During the same period, the Midwest added 7.3 million
and the Northeast just over 5 million jobs (Bureau of the Census,
1960, 1985~.
The South's econorn~c surge has been attributed to its improved
accessibility to national and international markets through newer
interstate highway systems and expanded airports; shifting energy
sources; upgraded public schools and universities; more modern phys-
ical plants; a sunny, benign climate; and relatively lower taxes and
wage rates (Cobb, 1984; Goldfield, 1982~. To these technological and
financial considerations were added healthy doses of progrowth atti-
tudes and industrial solicitation on the part of southern states and
communities (Cobb, 1982; Kasarda, 1980~. Thus, while manufactur-
ing employment in the Frostbelt (Northeast and Midwest regions)
declined by over a million jobs between 1960-1985, manufacturing
employment in the South grew by over 2 million. Moreover, em-
ployment growth in southern manufacturing was far overshadowed
by substantial increases in construction, trade, en c! services, which
added more than 15 million jobs to the South's economy between
1960-1985 (Bureau of the Census, 1960, 1985~.
The expanding post-WorId War II economies of the West and
OCR for page 150
150
John D. Kasarda
South sequentially attracted major streams of migrants. The net
interregional migration exchanges for the past three decades pre-
sented in Table 1 reflect the nation's shifting demographic growth
poles from the West to the South. Before 1970 the West was the
net beneficiary of migration streams from all census regions. These
streams were especially large during the 1950s. During the 1970s
the Current Population Survey indicates that more persons from the
West began moving to the South than vice versa, while net flows
from the Northeast and Midwest to the South rose dramatically. Be-
tween 1975-1980, overall net migration to the South was double that
to the West. Spurred by a marked increase in net flows from the
Midwest, net migration to the South was nearly triple that to the
West between 1980-1985 (1.9 million versus 649,000~. During the
past 15 years the Northeast and Midwest have experienced combined
net migration losses of 8 million people, most of whom moved to the
South. Since 1980 the Midwest has experienced a net migration loss
of 1.5 million, of which 1.1 million may be attributed to this region's
negative exchange with the South.
The research literature points to a complex of interacting factors
that have transformed the South from a net exporter of people until
the early 1950s to a demographic magnet in the 1970s and 1980s.
These factors include: (1) a sun-seeking retirement population whose
priorate pensions, Social Security payments, and other sources of in-
come free them from their previous work locations; (2) the intros
auction and spread of central air-conditioning systems that permit
far more comfortable summertime living and working conditions; (3)
life-style changes oriented to more recreation and year-round out-
door activities; (4) changing racial attitudes permitting blacks and
Hispanics new opportunities to participate in mainstream southern
institutions; (5) more progressive political orientations; (6) generally
lower costs for land, living, and amenities; (7) a major improvement
in the quantity and quality of consumer services brought about by
rising personal incomes; and (8) the emergence of the South as an
economic growth pole for the reasons mentioned earlier in this paper
(for additional discussion, see Kasarda, 1980~.
What about the demographic composition of the migrants? Ta-
ble 2 shows the net interregional migration exchanges between 1975-
1980, and between 1980-1985, by race and ethnicity. These ex-
changes, which were computed from the machine-readable files of
the Bureau of the Census' Current Population Survey, show that
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JOBS, MIGRATION, AND EMERGING URBAN MIS~4TCHES
TABLE 1 Net Interregional Migration Flows (in thousands), 1955-1985
151
Regional Net Migration (in thousands)
Exchanges 1955-1960a 1965-1970b 1970-1975C 1975-1980d 1980-1985
South with
Northeast 314 438 964 945 737
Midwest 122 275 790 813 1,100
West -380 -56 75 176 60
Total other
regions 56 657 1,829 1,935 1,897
West with
Northeast 285 224 311 518 234
Midwest 760 415 472 634 475
South 380 56 -75 -176 -60
Total other
regions 1,425 695 708 976 649
Midwest with
Northeast 40 53 67 146 50
South -122 -275 -790 -813 -1,100
West -760 -415 -472 -634 -475
Total other
regions -842 -637 - 1,195 - 1,302 - 1,525
Northeast with
Midwest -40 -53 -67 -146 -50
South -314 -438 -964 -945 -737
West -285 -224 -311 -518 -234
Total other
regions -639 -715 - 1,342 -1,609 -1,022
NOTE: Some columns do not sum precisely because of rounding.
bFrom Bureau of the Census (1963:Table 237~.
c From Bureau of the Census ~ 1973:Table 274) .
-dFrom Bureau of the Census (1975c).
e From Bureau of the Census ~ 1980b) .
-From Bureau of the Census (1985~.
non-Hispanic whites accounted for nearly 90 percent of the net south-
ern migration gains from other regions. Indeed, both the absolute
number and the percentage of net migrants to the South who were
non-Hispanic whites rose from the 1975-1980 period to the 1980-
1985 period. In the West, on the other hand, there has been a
substantial decline in the number and percentage of net inmigration
accounted for by non-Hispanic whites. Much of this decrease is due
OCR for page 152
152
John D. Ka~a~da
to a dramatic decline in the migration of non-Hispanic whites from
the Northeast from the 1975-1980 period to the 1980-1985 period.
Of related interest, the net return of non-Hispanic blacks to the
South from other regions declined from 194,()00 between 1975-1980
to 87,000 between 1980-1985, with most of this slowdown due to a
drop in the number of black migrants (59,000) from the Northeast.
Furthermore, the migration of non-Hispanic blacks from the South
to the Northeast increased by 50,000 between the 1975-1980 and
1980-1985 periods.
Table 2 also reveals the accelerating loss of non-Hispanic whites
from the Midwest. Between 1980-1985, the Midwest experienced a
negative net migration exchange of nearly 1.4 million non-Hispanic
whites with other regions of the country, compared with a net loss of
1.2 million between 1975 and 1980. The accelerated out-migration of
non-Hispanic whites from the Midwest was due largely to an increase
in this region's negative net exchange with the South.
Another migration stream of growing importance is movers from
abroad. Table 3 shows these movers, by region, for a series of 5-
year periods between 1955-1960 and 1980-1985. Two trends are
immediately apparent. First, there has been a substantial increase
in the total number of movers to the United States during the past
three decades. Second, since 1965 virtually all of the increase has
been captured by the West and the South, with the West pulling
ahead of the South as the primary destination. Between 1975-1985,
over 2.8 million persons from abroad moved to the West, 2.3 million
moved to the South, 1.7 million moved to the Northeast, and slightly
over 1 million moved to the Midwest. In fact, since 1980 the West
has gained more than twice as many movers from abroad as from the
other regions of the nation.
A more detailed analysis of these data by race and ethnicity
shows that during the last 10 years the West has received approx-
imately 1 million Asian immigrants, more than all other regions
combined. The vast majority of Asian immigrants have settled in
California. The West has also been the largest receiver of Hispanic
immigrants, gaining over 900,000 between 1975-1985. The South
has exhibited major increases in Hispanic immigrants during the
1980s, falling closely behind the West. The South also registered
increases in Asian immigrants but still trails the West substantially
as the regional destination of this group. Between the 1975-1980
and 1980-1985 periods, Hispanic immigrants to the Northeast and
OCR for page 153
153
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154
TABLE 3 Moorers from Abroad (in thousands) by Region, 1955-1985
John D. KaJarda
Region 1955-1960a 1965-1970b 1970-1975C 1975-1980d 1980-1985e
Northeast 592 821 903 834 832
Midwest 361 440 638 590 457
South 505 740 1,082 1,164 1,180
West 545 697 980 1,475 1,387
bFrom Bureau of the Census (1963:Table 237~.
c From Bureau of the Census (1977:Table 274~.
-~From Bureau of the Census ~ 1975c).
e From Bureau of the Census (1980b).
-From Bureau of the Census (1985b).
Midwest increased modestly, while Asian immigrants to these regions
declined slightly.
The shift in regional residence of movers from abroad during the
past three decades reflects a major change in the principal countries
of origin of such movers. Until the late 1950s the origin of most
U.S. immigrants was in Europe, geographically to the east and north
of the United States. The majority of immigrants therefore found
their closest ports of entry in New York and other northern states.
During the past two decades the territorial locus of origin nations
has increasingly shifted to the west and south of the United States
(principally Mexico, Latin America, and Asia). As a result, Los
Angeles, San Etrancisco, Miami, and Houston have become primary
ports of immigrant entry. Between 1970-1983, more than a million
Hispanics, Asians, and other foreign-born persons settled in Los
Angeles County (Muller and Espenshade, 1986), lending empirical
credence to anecdotal reports that Los Angeles has replaced New
York City as the exemplary smelting pot" of the nation.
With increased immigration supplementing substantial internal
net migration flows to the South and West, population growth in
these regions has dwarfed that of the Northeast and Midwest. Table
4 describes population change in each region between 1975-1980, and
between 1980-1985, by race and ethnicity. Over the past 10 years,
the South has added 12.3 million residents, the West has added
8.8 million, the Midwest 2.2 million, and the Northeast 1.2 million.
Further examination of Table 4 shows that, between both 1975-1980
and 1980-1985, the South and West have accounted-for more than
85 percent of the nation's population growth.
Table 4 also illustrates significant racial/ethnic differences in
OCR for page 155
155
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John D. Kasarda
regional population growth. The Northeast is the only region to
experience an absolute and percentage increase in population dur-
ing the 1980s compared with the latter half of the 1970s, yet its
non-Hispanic white population losses accelerated. Between 198(~
1985, the non-Hispanic white population of the Northeast declined by
554,000, while the region's Hispanic population expanded by 773,000,
its black population increased by 475,000, and its Asian population
expanded by 90,000.
The population increase that occurred in the Midwest during
the first half of the 1980s also was predominantly through increases
in that region's minority populations. On the other hand, the South
and the West experienced major growth of their non-Hispanic white
populations between 1975-1985. An aggregate comparison of the
Frostbelt (Northeast and Midwest) with the Sunbelt (South and
West) reveals that, between 1975-1985, the Sunbelt added 11.64
million non-Hispanic whites, whereas the Frostbelt lost 371,000 non-
Hispanic whites. The Sunbelt also added more minorities than did
the Frostbelt, although absolute differences in minority population
growth were not nearly as striking as they were for non-Hispanic
whites.
Along with racial/ethnic changes of migration flows among re-
gions, there have been changes in the racial/ethnic composition of
metropolitan central cities, suburbs, and nonmetropolitan areas of
each region. Table 5 presents these composition changes from 1975-
1985. With modest growth in the black, Asian, and Hispanic pop-
ulations, and absolute declines in non-Hispanic whites, the minority
proportion of central cities in the Northeast grew from 33 percent to
42 percent during this period. In the Midwest, central-city minority
proportions increased from 28 percent to 36 percent. Concurrently,
central cities in the South exhibited monotonic rises in their over-
all minority proportions, primarily through growth in the number of
Hispanics. Substantial growth in the Hispanic and Asian populations
occurred in western central cities. Indeed, increases in the number
of Hispanics and Asians in these cities were so substantial between
1975-1985 that, despite an absolute increase in the number of blacks
there during the period, the black proportion of central-city tote]
population fell by nearly 3 percent.
The racial/ethnic compositions and compositional changes that
occurred between 1975-1985 in the metropolitan suburban rings and
nonmetropolitan areas reveal some striking interregional contrasts.
In the Northeast and Midwest, non-Hispanic whites constitute more
OCR for page 157
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John D. Ka~a~da
than 90 percent of the suburban populations of these regions and
more than 95 percent of their nonmetropolitan populations. These
percentages changed very little between 1975-1985. In the South and
West, the minority percentages of the population in the suburban
rings and nonmetropolitan areas were much higher. The growth
of black, Asian, and Hispanic populations in the suburban rings of
southern metropolitan areas increased the minority percentage in
these areas from 15 percent to 21 percent between 1975-1985. The
minority percentage in western metropolitan suburbs concurrently
rose from 20 percent to 26 percent.
L`ed by a steady growth in the Asian population, minority per-
centages of nonmetropolitan areas in the West increased from 15
percent to 18 percent during 1975-1985. In the South, minority per-
centages of nonmetropolitan areas remained constant at slightly over
21 percent.
It is important to emphasize that, although the overall minority
proportions of central cities in the four regions are similar, there
are significant differences between the Frostbelt and Sunbelt regions
in their suburban and nonmetropolitan minority proportions. In
1985, the highest overall minority percentage In the metropolitan
suburbs or nonmetropolitan areas of the Frostbeit was 8.9 percent
in Northeast suburbs. Conversely, the lowest overall suburban or
nonmetropolitan minority proportion in the Sunbelt was 18 percent,
which was registered in nonmetropolitan areas of the West. Clearly,
then, minorities are less confined to central cities in the South and
West than in the Northeast or Midwest.
Recent minority immigrant locational trends reinforced these
relative differences in minority confinement. Between 1975-1985,
most minority immigrants to the Northeast and Midwest settled in
the central cities of metropolitan areas, whereas in the South and
West, most have settled in the suburban rings and nonmetropolitan
areas. As we will see later, such settlement patterns have important
implications for entry-level job opportunities for minorities.
COMPETITIVE EFFECTS AND REGIONAL GROWTH
A fundamental reason for the substantial growth of the South and
West during the past decade has been the ability of their economies
to weather recessions better than those of the Northeast and Mid-
west. In accounting for differential local and regional econorn~c per-
formance during economic downturns, industry mix has received a
OCR for page 188
188
John D. Canards
men residing in central cities in the Northeast and Midwest may be
quickly seen.
Corresponding black male unemployment and labor force non-
participation rates tend not to be as high in the central cities of the
South and West. For one reason, recall that these cities have ex-
perienced relatively fewer blue-collar job losses during the past two
decades, and some cities have added large numbers of jobs in indus-
tries that do not require substantial education in their work forces.
Moreover, the West, which has the lowest combined unemployment
and labor force nonparticipation rates for black men, is also the only
region in which the educational distribution of black men is skewed
toward the upper end (see Table 13~. It is not fortuitous, then, that
black males residing in central cities of the West also showed the
smallest increases in rates of unemployment and rates of labor force
nonparticipation between 196~1985.
CONCLUSIONS AND POLICY ISSUES
A key policy construct developed in the preceding sections is
"mismatch," which is defined as a discordant distribution of labor
qualifications vis-a-vis the qualifications required for available jobs
at a particular point in time. Mismatch has both nonspatial (nation-
wide) and spatially specific (community) aspects. The nonspatial
aspect results from transformations in the overall economy from an
industrial to a postindustrial base and the corresponding shrinking
demands for traditional blue-collar labor (Bell, 1973; Singlemann,
19783. A tacit assumption in much of the literature on postindustrial
society is that, through the interplay of market forces, displaced labor
will adapt to the transforming economy by "shifting" from one sector
to another (e.g., from manufacturing to services). Appropriate skills
will eventually be acquired or sufficient numbers of service-sector
jobs (both Tow-skill and high-skill) will be created, absorbing the
displaced and relieving the mismatch. This, of course, has been slow
to happen in the United States, giving credence to those who argue
that some structural unemployment will remain a permanent feature
of the national economy.
Spatially specific mismatches emerge in those areas in which
transformations in local employment bases occur faster than their
local labor can adapt, either through retraining or relocation. These
mismatches are most apparent in larger, older cities in the North in
which declines in traditional blue-collar industries and the growth
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JOBS, MIGRATION, AND EMERGING URBAN MISMATCHES
189
of information-processing industries have been rapid and substan-
tial. So different are the skills used and the education required in
these growing as opposed to declining urban industrial sectors that
adaptation by the displaced is exceedingly difficult. This difficulty
is concretely represented in the exceptionally high unemployment
rates of those central-city residents who have not completed high
school, regardless of race, and the widening gap over time between
the central-city unemployment rates of the poorly and the better
educated.
It follows from the above that unemployment rates and labor
force dropout rates will be higher for resident groups whose educa-
tional distributions are inconsistent with the changing job opportu-
nity structures of their localities. Such circumstances are particularly
the case for black men (aged 16 or older) in major cities in the North
who are most concentrated in the education-completed category in
which matching local jobs are contracting (less than high-schooT
degree) and least represented in the education-completed category
in which local jobs are expanding (some higher education typically
required).
Exacerbating resident labor force job opportunity mismatches
have been recent demographic trends in these cities. During the past
two decades, northern cities that lost the largest numbers of blue-
collar and other jobs with Tow educational requisites simultaneously
added large numbers of poorly educated minorities to their work-
ing age population. This demographic phenomenon, which contrasts
sharply with that anticipated on the basis of market equilibrium
models, leads to an important policy question: What is continuing
to attract and/or hold large numbers of less skilled minorities in
urban centers while employment opportunities appropriate to their
skills are disappearing? To be sure, such factors as racial discrimi-
nation, a lack of sufficient low-income housing in outlying areas, and
the dependence of low-income minorities on public transportation
account for a significant part of the explanation. There is also the
vast urban underground economy that enables many of those dis-
placed from the mainstream economy to survive. Indeed, for many
who lack the educational, technical, or interpersonal skills for em-
ployment in mainstream institutions, the inner city may provide the
only environment in which they can stay afloat economically.
It has been suggested elsewhere (Kasarda, 1983, 1985) that cer-
tain public policies may also be anchoring disadvantaged persons
in areas of rapid blue-collar job decline. These policies are based
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190
Jot D. Kasarda
on the seemingly reasonable principle of spatially targeting public
assistance: areas of the greatest economic distress (measured by
such factors as poverty rates and persistent unemployment) receive
the largest allocations of funds for public housing, community nutri-
tional and health care, and other locationally focused government aid
(U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 1978, 1980~.
Formula-based community assistance programs have also been intro-
duced such that the greater a locality's employment loss or other
indicator of economic distress, the more federal aid it could receive
(U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 1980, 1984;
Swanson and Vogel, 1986~. Thus, as the blue-collar employment
bases of cities have withered, additional public assistance has been
provided, serving as a partial subsistence surrogate for many of those
displaced from the economic mainstream (for data, see Kasarda,
1985~.
Although these policies helped relieve certain problems associ-
ated with declining blue-collar job bases (e.g., the inability of the
unemployed to afford private sector housing or adequate nutrition
and health care), they did nothing to reduce the growing skills mis-
match between the resident labor force and available jobs. In fact,
such spatially targeted assistance may have inadvertently increased
the mismatch and the plight of the poor by bonding distressed people
to distressed places.
For those with some resources and for the fortunate portion
of that population whose efforts break the bonds of dependency,
spatially concentrated public assistance may not impede mobility.
But for many inner-city poor without skills, local concentrations
of public assistance and community services can be sticking forces.
With a low perceived marginal utility of migration relative to the
opportunity costs of giving up their in-place assistance, they see
themselves as better off staying where they are.
Yet such immobility is detrimental to the longer term economic
prospects of both the unemployed and the places in which they re-
side. Imagine, for instance, what knight have happened in the first
half of this century if the millions of structurally displaced southern-
ers who migrated to economically expanding northern cities in search
of jobs and a better life had been sustained in their distressed com-
munities by public assistance. It is possible that many would never
have moved, and the significant advances in income levels and living
standards that the South and its out-migrants eventually attained
would not have occurred.
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JOBS, MIGRATION, AND EMERGING URBAN MISMATCHES
191
Circumstances in today's distressed inner-city areas are roughly
analogous. These areas are characterized by excesses of structurally
displaced labor as their blue-collar job bases wither. Large concentra-
tions of the unemployed who are increasingly dependent on welfare
or the underground economy, or both, pose negative externalities
(crime, alcoholism, drug abuse, loitering, vandalism) that further
dissuade new businesses from locating nearby. Eventually, neigh-
borhood deterioration and residential abandonment will probably
thin out the population to the extent that spatially extensive pri-
vate sector reinvestment becomes feasible. This process often takes a
generation or more, however, and in the meantime it imposes heavy
social and economic costs on the city and on those remaining.
To alleviate the problems engendered by excesses of structurally
displaced labor in inner-city areas of decline, some have suggested a
national development bank, a new Reconstruction Finance Corpo-
ration, enterprise zones, or government-business-labor partnerships
that might ~reindustrialize" these areas or otherwise rebuild their
blue-collar employment bases (see Butler, 1981; Hanson, 1983; Ro-
hatyn, 1979, 1981; U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Devel-
opment, 1978, 1980, 1984~. Such jobs-to-people strategies may be
as unrealistic in terms of their objective as they are nostalgic. The
government subsidies, tax incentives, and regulatory relief contained
in existing and proposed urban policies are not nearly sufficient to
overcome technological and market forces that are redistributing ur-
ban blue-collar jobs and shaping the economies of our major cities.
Economic advancement of cities and maximum job creation can best
be accomplished through private and public initiatives that promote
information-processing and other advanced service sector industries
whose functions are consistent with the roles computer-age cities
most effectively perform.
Cities that are proactive in capitalizing on their emerging service
sector roles should experience renewed overall employment growth,
as, it has been noted, is already occurring in Boston and New York
City. But if large portions of their residents lack the appropriate
education to be hired by information processing and other white-
collar service industries beginning to dominate urban employment
bases, the plight of the poorly educated could further deteriorate.
For this reason, and because demographic forces portend potential
shortages of educationally qualified resident labor for the knowledge-
intensive industries that are already expanding in the cities, there
have been cogent calls from both the public and private sectors to
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192
Johns D. Kasarda
upgrade city schools and increase the proportion of urban residents
who receive some higher education.
Policies geared to improving the education of urban residents are
essential to longer term solutions of mismatch and the social and eco-
nomic health of cities. Such policies, however, are unlikely to alleviate
the persistent unemployment problems currently facing a large num-
ber of displaced older workers and yet-to-be-placed younger workers
with serious educational deficiencies those caught in the web of ur-
ban change. Such unemployment persists because the educational
qualifications demanded by most urban information-processing in-
dustries are difficult to impart through short-term, nontraditional
programs. Qualifications for employment in these industries typically
accrue through prolonged formal schooling during which marketable
benefits accumulate as one passes through certifying educational
thresholds (e.g., high school, baccalaureate, M.B.A., law degrees).
It seems overly optimistic to think that sizable numbers of those
displaced because of their educational deficiencies (especially older
persons) will desire or be capable of reentering prolonged schooling
programs to obtain the appropriate qualifications.
The unplausibility of rebuilding urban blue-collar job bases or
of providing sufficient education to large numbers of displaced ur-
ban laborers so they may be reemployed in expanding white-colIar
industries necessitates a renewed Took at the traditional means by
which Americans have adapted to economic displacement that is,
migration. Despite the mass loss of lower skill jobs in many cities
during the past decade, there have been substantial increases in
these jobs nationwide. For example, between 1975-1985, more than
2.1 million nonadrn~nistrative jobs were added in eating and drinking
establishments, which is more than the total number of production
jobs that currently exist in America's automobile, primary metals,
and textile industries combined (1.86 million in 1985) (Bureau of
I,abor Statistics, 1975, 1986~. Unfortunately, essentially all of the
national growth in entry-level and other jobs with low educational
requisites has occurred in the suburbs, exurbs, and nonmetropolitan
areas, all of which are far removed from growing concentrations of
poorly educated minorities. It is both an irony and a tragedy that
we have such huge surpluses of entry-level labor in the inner cities
at the same time suburban businesses are facing serious entry-level
labor shortages.
The inability of disadvantaged urban minorities to follow de-
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JOBS, MIGRATION, AND EMERGING URBAN MISMATCHES
193
centralizing entry-level jobs (either because of racial discrirn~nation,
inadequate knowledge or resources, or government-subsidized an-
choring) has increasingly isolated these minorities from shifting loci
of employment opportunity and has contributed to their high rates
of unemployment, labor force nonparticipation, and welfare depen-
dency. Such isolation, blocked mobility, and dependency breed hope-
lessness, despair, and alienation that, in turn, foster drug abuse, fam-
ily dissolution, and other social problems that disproportionately af-
flict the urban disadvantaged. For many young men, confined as they
are in commercially abandoned ghettos in which stable husband-wife
families are few, pimps, pushers, and toughs replace working fathers
as role models. The cultural isolation of these young men and their
sociaTization-by-the-street prevent them from developing the positive
work values and interpersonal skills that are as important as tech-
nical skills in obtaining and holding a job. The result is a powerful
spatial interaction of social and economic malaise.
To sum up the working thesis of this paper, America's jobs and
people have moved about continuously. Now it appears that at least
one segment of our population has become increasingly immobilized
in culturally and economically isolated inner-city areas of decline.
Without jobs and without much hope for jobs, the "new immobiles"
are caught in a downward socioeconomic spiral that is unprecedented
for urban dwellers in this country.
To improve the mobility options of the urban disadvantaged and
reduce their spatial isolation from job opportunities that are better
matched with their skills, a number of strategies should be con-
sidered. These might include: (1) a computerized job opportunity
network providing up-to-date information on available jobs through-
out the particular metropolitan area, the region, and the nation; (2)
partial underwriting of more distant job searches by the unemployed;
(3) need-based temporary relocation assistance, once a job has been
secured; (4) housing vouchers for those whose income levels require
such assistance, as opposed to additional spatially fixed public hous-
ing complexes; (5) stricter enforcement of existing fair-housing aIld
~ e ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
talr-nlrlng laws; hi) publlc-ptlvate cooperative efforts to van pool
unemployed inner-city residents to suburban businesses facing labor
shortages; and (7) a thorough review of all public assistance programs
to ensure that they are not inadvertently anchoring those with lim-
item] resources to distressed areas in which there are few prospects for
permanent or meaningful employment.
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194
Johns D. Kasa~da
The strategies enumerated above are not suggested as replace-
ments for efforts to make cities more attractive to blue-collar indus-
tries or imperative programs to improve the educational qualifica-
tions of inner-city residents but rather as complements to them. All
three general strategies (jobs-to-people, people-tojobs, and educa-
tional upgrading) must be further complemented by national eco-
nomic development policies that foster sustained private sector em-
ployment growth. The economic health of cities is inexorably inter-
woven with the health of the national economy. Moreover, programs
assisting the retraining or relocation of the structurally unemployed
will prove fruitless unless there are new and enduring jobs at the end
of the training programs or moves.
Thus, rather than subsidizing the relocation of industries to ur-
ban areas of greater cost or Tower productivity (thus lowering the net
national return on investment), cities should be encouraged to intro-
duce economic development strategies aimed at creating productive,
cost-competitive environments that would attract such industries.
The prior appraisal of regional employment shifts suggests that there
are a number of important competitive factors that city officials can
influence such as local taxes and business regulations. They can also
influence local policies regarding public schools, safety, and municipal
service delivery, all of which might make the margin of difference for
middIe-income families and businesses that are considering locating
in (or leaving) the city.
In other words, local officials are not helpless in determining the
fate of their cities. They must think strategically about their own
city's future, however, and candidly assess its competitive strengths
and weaknesses in a changing national and international economic
arena. They must implement policies that will be oriented more
toward the future, building on their city's emerging strengths in this
transforming arena.
Let us take public infrastructure development policy as one brief
example. Just as canals, railway terminals, paved streets, running
water, and electric power lines once provided cities with comparative
advantages for processing and transporting goods, successful cities of
the future will develop computer-age infrastructures that will provide
them with comparative advantages for processing and transmitting
information. As a start, concerted efforts must be made to "wire"
cities with fiber optics and broad-band cables so that businesses lo-
cating in them can quickly and efficiently receive, process, store, and
OCR for page 195
JOBS, MIGRATION, AND EMERGING URBAN MISMATCHES
195
transmit immense amount of data and information. Cities, like-
wise, should take advantage of their economies of scale and provide
municipally owned supercomputer facilities and teleports to service
their growing information-processing industries on a cost-sharing ba-
sis. They should also nurture national and international accessibility
through their unrivaled airports (a unique comparative strength of
major cities) by further improving these facilities and expanding
airline connections for business people and tourists.
To repeat, the destinies of cities are not entirely shaped by exter-
nal forces beyond their control. All have enormous latent strengths
that can be built upon in constructing brighter urban futures. Even
those of our older industrial cities that have experienced the greatest
population and job losses over the past two decades have a rich archi-
tectural heritage, diverse ethnic character, and urban ambience that
cannot be replicated in most newer Sunbelt cities. Recognizing and
exploiting such strengths will require foresight and action on the part
of local leaders. In the end, the economic and demographic future
of cities will be determined less by national urban policies than by
how effectively local leadership fosters new urban roles and meets
the needs and aspirations of various population groups and firms.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Research reported herein was supported, in part, by a grant from
the National Science Foundation. Tabular assistance was provided
by Andrea M. Bohlig, Holly L. Hughes, and Michael D. Irwin. This
paper wan originally titled "The Regional and Urban Redistribution
of People and Jobs.n
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
labor force
