The ameliorated trade-off between commuting efficiency and jobs-housing balance in a green-belted city: Lessons from Seoul

Abstract

Co-locating jobs and housing is natural to cost-saving individuals but is potentially congestive at a local level. As for quasi-rational locators, whose rationality is limited in finding the best location especially in the short run, their houses and jobs tend to agglomerate, yielding congestion especially in growing localities. In the long run, when more information and time to adapt to such an externality become available, however, jobs-housing (J-H) balance may be improved after short-run imbalance. Graphically, the J-H balance to be expressible in the J-H ratio (X) and commuting efficiency (Y) tend to be linearly traded off at a regional level in the long run, but this trade-off can be U-shaped at a local level especially in the short run. This study discusses long-run stabilisation after short-run dynamic adaptation (periods) to such a U-shaped ‘trade-off’ in and outside the greenbelt of Seoul. Its spatial transitions between 2000, 2005, and 2010 were analysed regarding the quasi-rational commuters' local amelioration of the trade-off. It is shown that commuting time decreased and J-H balance overall improved in the long run. This trend is more apparent in the new towns built between 1989 and 1995 than the nine new towns built after the mid 2000s. Mean commuting time decreased sharply in such most job-rich or formerly housing-rich areas as ones with J-H ratios >2.08 or <1.18. This suggests a quasi-rational-commuter-led transition to improved balance in the long run, despite the greenbelt's commuting-delaying effect. Considering this J-H range, this transition needs to be managed more scientifically, minimising the greenbelt's negative effect with any positive effect untainted.