Spatial restructuring and uneven intra-urban employment growth in metro- and non-metro-served areas in Copenhagen

Abstract

This paper addresses the wider benefits of major investments in urban transport and discusses the relevance of giving attention to time and geographical scale in the analysis of employment growth before, under and after the introduction of new urban transport infrastructure. Using descriptive statistics in combination with OLS modelling, the paper analyses the intra-urban employment growth by workplace in regard to the opening of the Copenhagen Metro in 2002. The study identifies strong employment growth in the case of Copenhagen and higher employment growth in metro-served areas compared to non-metro-served areas in the first ten years after the opening of the Metro. The study also finds that when zooming in on the local scale, employment growth has been unevenly distributed along the metro corridor leading to a spatial restructuring of intra-urban employment patterns. This highlights that geographical scale and time is of critical importance when addressing the development of employment in areas that have witnessed investment in infrastructure. Moreover, the paper shows that especially the existing urban structures of the built environment, supporting planning policies, the local economic context and the preconditions for the development seems to be of great importance when assessing intra-urban restructuring of employment.