Suburban Employment Centres: The Case of Chicago

This paper uses data from the journey to work portion of the 1980 Census to estimate a polycentric model of employment density for the Chicago urbanised area. Distance to the Chicago central business district exerted a strong effect on employment density, but density was also influenced by proximity to three suburban employment centres. Some 27 per cent of total employment growth in metropolitan Chicago over the next decade was concentrated in these three subcentres.