Mapping the People Left Behind by the Knowledge Economy

The physical shape of a city is closely tied to the structure of its economy. A city built on shipping is built on water. University towns grow up wrapped around those institutions. In manufacturing metros, the roads lead people to factory hubs, with their bedroom communities nearby.

This relationship between the design of cities and their job centers presents a quandary, though, when economies shift over time. What happens, for instance, when workers move to the fringe of cities to follow manufacturing work, only to find that tomorrow's knowledge-economy jobs have returned downtown? This is a particular problem for transit networks that often have a hard time keeping up with the shifting geography of job opportunity.