Employment suburbanization in the 21st century: A comparison of German and US city regions

Abstract The empirical research on urban spatial structure and its evolution still lacks comprehensive, longitudinal and international comparative perspectives. At this background, this paper addresses the change of intra-metropolitan employment patterns by scrutinizing two relatively large and representative samples of German and US American city regions, covering the years between 2003 and 2015. Our analysis reveals strong differences in the spatial employment distribution between both countries. In general, US metropolitan areas are far more decentralized and deconcentrated than their German counterparts. While the trajectories of American metropolitan employment suburbanization were relatively dynamic with periods of de- and re-concentration, the development trend for German city regions has been remarkably stable. Furthermore, we found a relatively great inter-regional variety of spatial trajectories in both countries, involving the coexistence of stagnation, reinforced monocentricity, and generalized dispersal. However, polycentric developments have been relatively rare. Last but not least, we examine the potential drivers of employment suburbanization by estimating linear regression models. The results indicate that employment suburbanization can be mainly understood as a function of residential suburbanization and the development of the manufacturing sector, but we find strong differences between the US and the German context.