WHERE YOUTH LIVE - ECONOMIC-EFFECTS OF URBAN SPACE ON EMPLOYMENT PROSPECTS

This paper synthesises a series of empirical analyses investigating th e role of urban space in affecting minority employment outcomes. It br oadens the focus beyond transport and the 'friction of space' and expa nds the data available for spatial research. The empirical analyses sh are a common framework linking 'access' to youth labour market perform ance. The first set of results is based on aggregate data relating acc ess to employment outcomes for black youth at the metropolitan level. Access is broadly defined to include traditional measures of geographi cal distance, as well as measures of social isolation or social access . Metropolitan areas in which the black poor are more spatially isolat ed are also found to have higher black youth unemployment rates. The s econd body of evidence relies on the same type of metropolitan measure s, combined with individual data on youth living with at least one par ent. When individual and family characteristics are controlled for, an d white and Hispanic youth are also considered, metropolitan measures of social access exert distinguishable effects upon youth employment-y outh living in urban areas in which they have less residential contact with whites or the non-poor are less likely to be employed. The final piece of analysis links the individual records of such youth to tract -level measures of access, both social (neighbourhood composition vari ables) and geographical (job-access measures). This is accomplished th rough the creation of a unique data set at the Bureau of the Census. A gain, after controlling for individual and family characteristics, the residential conditions of youth affect their employment. Ceteris pari bus, youth living in census tracts with fewer employed adults, with fe wer whites, and which are further from jobs are less likely to be empl oyed. Results suggest that the overall effects of space on employment outcomes are substantial, explaining 10-40 per cent of the observed ra cial differences in employment in four urban areas examined. Of this ' spatial' effect, the bulk arises from social/informational measures; j ob access appears to play a much smaller role. However, when measured more precisely, at the census-tract level, job access does have a sign ificant effect on youth employment. This effect is less important than other spatial influences. Spatial influences are less important in ex plaining outcomes than are differences in human capital.