New Jobs in City Centers, Suburban Employment Shrinks

[Jumpinjack]

Jacksonville jobs declining but more quickly outside urban centers  Full story: http://nyti.ms/17RhuGp

For decades, most Americans working in metropolitan areas have gone to work outside city centers – in suburban office parks, stores or plants, not downtown skyscrapers. But as people increasingly choose to live in cities instead of outside them, employers are following.

In recent years, employment in city centers has grown and employment in the surrounding suburban areas has shrunk, a striking change from the years before, according to a report published Tuesday by City Observatory, a think tank. The changes are seemingly small, but they represent an important shift in the American work force. As recently as 2007, employment outside city centers was climbing much faster than inside.

[tufsu1]

Here is a a link to the full report.  Unfortunately the stats do not look good for Jacksonville.  We had the second highest rate of suburban job growth of the cities studied during the boom years.  And while, the urban core lost a smaller percentage of jobs than the suburbs during the recession, it is still an overall drop.

http://cityobservatory.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Surging-City-Center-Jobs.pdf