Jobs-Housing Balance: An Outdated Planning Concept?

"In the 1980s, a concept called "jobs-housing balance" arose in urban-planning circles.

If government policies promoted building new houses, condos and apartments close to offices, stores and factories, the thinking went, people would commute shorter distances and be more likely to walk, bike or take the bus to work.

But do residents reside need their workplaces?"

"Only about 40 percent of the workers who live in Redmond — a city where jobs greatly outnumber residents — also work there, according to the Census Bureau. For Tukwila, another regional job magnet, that figure is even smaller: just 17 percent.

About three-quarters of the residents of Issaquah, Renton and Kent who work, earn their living in another town."

The census estimates for places like Redmond and Issaquah suggest "there are limits to that notion (of jobs-housing balance), and they should be recognized," says Dan Carlson, a senior lecturer at the University of Washington's Evans School of Public Affairs who studies transportation and land use.