Workplace Restructuring and Urban Form: The Changing National Settlement Patterns of the Canadian Workforce

Abstract

ABSTRACT:This article examines the relationship between emerging work arrangements and national settlement patterns. While growth is centralized in large cities, social commentators continue to suggest that workplace restructuring—facilitated by technological progress—encourages more dispersed settlement patterns, evoking concern about the environmental sustainability of the trend. Multivariate analysis using Canadian census data shows that with the exception of self-employed professionals, the home workers, and self-employed in nonmanual occupations have a lower tendency to reside in large cities than otherwise similar wage and salary earning commuters. However, household mobility and temporal trends suggest that workplace restructuring is not dispersing workers away from large cities by inducing mobility, but that take-up is higher in more remote areas. It is argued that workplace restructuring permits more dispersed national settlement patterns than if workers needed to move to large cities for proximity to employment growth. The article reflects on the implications of the findings for urban sustainability policies that promote compact urban forms and the policies that emphasize consumption amenities of cities to attract mobile workers.