Moving through the City : the Changing Impact of the Journey to Work on Intra-Urban Mobility in XXth Century Britain

Abstract

In the XIXth century the journey to work was one of the main constraints on intra-urban residential mobility. During the XXth century these ties have gradually been weakened as more people have gained access to faster forms of transport, and workers have been able to live further from their places of employment. However, we know relatively little about precisely when and how such changes occurred. This paper uses original quantitative and qualitative life history data to explore changes in the journey to work in Britain during the XXth century, and examine the likely impact of such changes on residential choice. It is demonstrated that whereas mean journey to work distances increased significantly during the twentieth century, the average amount of time spent commuting has changed little. There were notable variations in the structure of the journey to work by gender and location throughout the twentieth century, with women usually utilising slower transport modes, and experiencing greater life-cycle constraints on the journey to work. It is argued that the journey to work is an important and neglected factor that fundamentally influenced residential mobility in cities.