LABOR FORCE COMMUTING
IN TUCSON, ARIZONA
by
William Joseph Stapp
A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the
DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY, REGIONAL
DEVELOPMENT AND URBAN PLANNING
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
For the Degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
WITH A MAJOR IN GEOGRAPHY
In the Graduate College
THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF T A B L E S .............................................. v
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS...................................... vi
ABSTRACT.................................................... lx
1. INTRODUCTION ................................................ 1
2. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE.................................... 8
3. THE TOOLS OF A N A L Y S I S ...................................... 20
H i s t o r y ................................................ 20
Statistics..................................... 27
A p p l ication............................................ 33
4. THE WORK CENTER LABOR S H E D S ................................ 37
Residential Pattern of the Tucson Labor Force .......... 41
Residential Density Gradient of CBD Jobholders ........... 48
Work Center Labor Shed Structure ......................... 53
The Primary G r o u p .................................. 53
The Secondary G r o u p ............. 67
The Tertiary, Quaternary and Minor Groups ........... 80
Work Zones Outside the TATPA Study A r e a ............. 93
Relationship of Housing Value Class and Personal
Income to Home-Work Separation........................ 96
5. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS...................................... Ill
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY . .................................... 116
ABSTRACT
Geographers have proposed a number of models to explain commuting patterns of urban labor forces. This thesis purports to test in the Tucson area a model proposed by J. Douglas Carroll, Jr. in his earlier works. Carroll proposed two hypotheses: that forces at work in cities tend to minimize home-work separation, and that the concentrative effort of those forces is an important shaper of total urban residential patterns. A corollary, and controversial, question also addressed in this thesis concerns the role of the individual income spectrum in shaping commuting patterns. Some geographers have seen income level as a major force which acts to arrange workers around work places in a pattern of increasing commuting distance as worker income increases. Peter L. Halvorsen disputes that premise. The findings of this thesis are: that the Carroll hypotheses apply in Tucson, but as Carroll warns, the characteristics of site and other local modifiers must be taken into account, and that, contrary to Halvorsen*s conclusions, around most work centers and among workers at large, mean commuting distance increases with income from the lowest through the middle income groups. Because of settlement patterns which evolved as Tucson grew, mean commuting distance drops as the curve enters the upper income range, then rises to the highest level among the highest income people.
CHAPTER 5 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
Carroll's (1952, p. 271) concluding remarks, as might be expected in view of the meager data available at that time and his opening statement that his proposals "are not made with the assumption that there is no other force or tendency operating to create pattern" are in most respects speculative. For that reason, his generalizations have been viewed throughout this thesis as points of departure rather than postulates to be supported or discredited. The Tucson case study documented herein generally supports all three generalizations in the averaging process, but sharp deviations emerge when the Tucson urban structure is examined piecemeal.
The first general statement, that urban populations tend to be distributed more or less evenly about the CBD, is valid for Tucson when densities of population are averaged mile zone by mile zone for their full 360 degree circumferences, despite the eccentric position of the CBD. But it does not hold true in the strict interpretation of the Burgess (1923) zonal theory. Every azimuth generates an altogether different density gradient because of terrain, land use and land usability. For the urban population distribution in Tucson, neither the Burgess (1923), the Hoyt (1939) nor the Harris and Ullman (1945) theory can stand alone. The Tucson urban structure is about equal parts of all three. The average density gradient of the aggregate labor force in Tucson once again validates the gravity analog, but the gradient is a straight line and must in all but the most exceptional cases recognize the outer edge of a "frictionless zone" as the initial point of the gradient rather than the center of the zone of work.
The second Carroll generalization, that the distribution of CBD jobholders approximates that of the entire population, suggests a contradiction of his first hypothesis that forces tend to minimize the home-work separation; nor is that phenomenon fully explained. The generalization holds reasonably true in Tucson, but again as in the case of the entire labor force, only in the averaging process. If density gradients are examined piecemeal (Figure 3), only the gradient for the east side (Sector B) bears much resemblance to the average density profile for the entire labor force in the major points of peaking. Though the generally downward trend of the Sector C profile follows that of the profile for the entire labor force, peaks and valleys do not match. Thus, it appears, and can be concluded with reservations, that Tucson*s pattern of CBD jobholder residences does match the residential pattern of the labor force at large, but only as an average. Averaging should be done with caution and only after exhaustive examination of the components that influence it.
The third generalization, that in-commuting workers to offcenter work places tend to live closer to the work bench holds generally true in Tucson. Moreover, the greater the specialization within the off-center work place, the greater the tendency to crowd worker residences around the work place. The exceptions have discemable reasons for greater employee dispersion. .In the case of Tucson Medical Center, for example, the hospital is located in an area that does not match the rent curve for the income range of a large number of hospital employees. The airport, on the other hand, is a remote site and one of those responsible for the fact that Tucson’s daytime labor force population is materially less than the nighttime population, a phenomenon rarely encountered in eastern and midwestem industrial cities, and certainly the reverse of the pattern in northwestern Europe (Dickinson, 1957 and 1959).
Halvorsen's (1973, p. 360) position that "There is little evidence . . . in support of the contention that differences in joumey-towork distances may be ascribed to differences in income level" appears to have considerable merit, but the choice of residence across the spectrum of income levels with respect to home-work separation is not as simple as Halvorsen’s conclusions might lead the reader to believe, at least in Tucson. There are other compelling forces at work which have little to do with income per se; rather these forces are functions of the development pattern as it has taken shape in Tucson through several decades. The housing pattern that has emerged in Tucson over the years has been almost entirely controlled by the market place; it has developed largely in response to the demand of the middle income groups. Housing has appeared where and when it will sell at a price the buyer would pay. Development for the middle income market has been a continuous process from year to year; in Tucson, it is hardly even seasonal.
This Is not true In the case of housing construction for the low income groups, who must acquire housing, as a general rule, through a succession process wherever deterioration of neighborhoods takes over. For the well-to-do, the opening of areas suitable for high cost, custombuilt homes is periodic. The opening of such tracts occurs only when the demand builds up over a period of years or even decades while existing exclusive tracts grow to full occupancy. The overall result is a pattern that lends credence to the theory that home-work separation is not necessarily a function of income level. The pattern of widening dispersal and increasing mean commuting distance as income rises and the sudden dip in mean commuting distance as the curves enter the high income realm is, however, an effect. The cause stems from the degree of ubiquity and the volume of demand generated from one work center to another among the middle income people. The rich and the poor, on the other hand, must live where economic and social status dictate. Thus, home-work separation in the latter two groups is predominantly a function of history and pre-established residential sites.
It was stated in this thesis near the end of the second chapter that Halvorsen’s (1973) conclusions might appear to contradict Carroll’s (1952) first hypothesis which concerns the distribution of population around the central district. But the influence of high-value property nucleation in Tucson’s residential pattern turns out to be minimal. The dips in the home-work separation curve, as apparently influenced by income level, do not materially change the density gradients of the CBD and the entire TATPA study area labor forces as gradients slope away from the central district. Those members of the labor force in the income bracket where the home-work separation curve dips represent less than three percent of the aggregate labor force in the 20 percent sample of workers employed within the TATPA study area.
In general summary, Carroll’s (1952) theories are sufficiently valid to offer excellent points of departure for research in the field of urban structure and the spatial relationship of work places to the homes of people who commute between the two. Halvorsen (1973) is correct in his theory that home-work separation is not necessarily a function of income level. But he appears to ignore two major forces at work in the choice of residence with respect to commuting distance; the housing pattern as it develops through time and the process of matching income to house value.
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