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sprawling patterns of development from
the perspective of workforce development
and organized labor and articulates why
funders who seek to help workers gain
family-supporting skills and jobs should also
consider becoming involved in the emerging
movement for smarter growth policies and
practices. The paper
details how sprawling
patterns of
development reduce
opportunity for low-
skill workers and
contribute to the
geographic
concentration of
poverty. Indeed, it
argues that unchecked,
sprawl will continue to
undermine the basic
systems necessary for
residents of inner
cities and suburbs to
gain skills and jobs.
Conversely, it
describes how smarter growth policies
and practices can help keep jobs, education,
and training accessible to core-area workers.

not only to central cities but also to inner-
ring suburbs and other mature urban areas
experiencing employment stagnation or
job flight.

The paper also details the widely varying
economic forces that are shaping the
geography of individual industries. For
example, the same \u201cbig box\u201d retailers that
draw opposition from rural conservationists
are also the nemesis of unionized grocery
and warehouse workers. Much subtler are

the migrations of manufacturing and health
care work, but both
fuel sprawling
development and
reduce job quality.
Each sector presents
unique opportunities
and challenges, but
many of the same
forces arrayed against
job development also
contribute to sprawl.

Also explored is a new
lens on the geography
of work created by
disclosure of
company-specific
economic

development
incentives, complementing existing
scholarship on public goods such as roads
and sewers. Such information allows the
public to track job relocation and assess the
resulting impact on job access and
commuting patterns. Today\u2019s \u201cbusiness
climate,\u201d with its premium on skilled labor,
clearly argues for a massive reallocation of

second updated edition in a series of papers sponsored by the Funders\u2019 Network to translate the
impact of sprawling patterns of development and urban disinvestment on our communities and
environment and to highlight the opportunities that could be created by smarter growth policies
and practices. Other issues addressed in the translation papers include regional equity, air quality,
energy, water, community development, arts, health, biodiversity, children and families,
education, aging, transportation, agriculture, civic participation, and open space.

Sprawl is the result of public decisions that
cause land use patterns to be characterized by
low-density development, strict separation of
residential and non-residential property, high

spatial separation between jobs and housing,
and auto-oriented land use that
denies commuters a choice about
how to get to work. These
phenomena make most new jobs
inaccessible to workers who rely
on public transit; hence, sprawl is
associated with increased
concentrations of poverty in older
areas. For workers who do have
cars, sprawl increases their
dependence on automobiles and

infrastructure and services, as well as fiscal strains produced by rapid growth in newly developing fringe suburbs.

For the geography of work, sprawl means the decentralization of entry-level jobs in the manufacturing, wholesale, and retail

sectors, moving work further from
concentrations of low-skilled, unemployed
workers. Incentivized by public funding of
new highways, employer decisions to locate
on the fringe of metro areas, often away
from public transit, are a key cause of the
problem. The lack of affordable suburban
housing and adequate public transportation
in the suburbs effectively cuts central city
residents off from regional labor markets.3
Public agencies seek to address this spatial
mismatch with transportation and housing
programs. Examples include the Job Access
and Reverse Commute Program (JARC),
established under the Transportation Equity
Act for the 21stCenturyAct (\u201cTEA-21\u201d),
which specifically provided missing
transportation services for Temporary
Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)
recipients and low-income workers to get to
work. The JARC Program includes transit
options to suburban jobs and extended
service in the evenings and weekends for
urban locations as well. During the
reauthorization process of the federal

resources to improve adult-worker skills,
which would disproportionately benefit
core-area workers and create an incentive
for employers to reinvest there.

The paper also posits that organized
labor has a very large stake in the sprawl
debate, and that unions are increasingly aware
of that fact. (For a map of unions\u2019 self-
interests in smart growth, seeTalking

While unions such as the United Food and
Commercial Workers have long opposed \u201cbig
box\u201d retail projects, and the Amalgamated
Transit Union has long advocated for better
public transit, many other unions are starting

a resolution at its December 2001 convention
condemning sprawl and urging its affiliated
unions to weigh-in on the smart growth
debate. As active partners in both regional
workforce investment boards and myriad
workforce development projects, unions are
in a key position to facilitate metropolitan
alliances for equitable urban revitalization.

Finally, this paper observes that a
\u201ccommunity-based regionalism\u201d is emerging
and involves new coalitions, some including
organized labor. It argues that funders have a
critical role to play in linking the smart
growth and workforce development
movements. Navigating the difficult waters of
\u201cnew tricks\u201d and \u201cold dogs,\u201d funders should
be looking for promising new approaches as
well as proven coalition players.

For the geography of work, sprawl means the decentralization of entry- level jobs in the manufacturing, wholesale, and retail sectors, moving work further from concentrations of low-skilled, unemployed workers.

transporation bill, transit advocates urged
the continuation of the JARC program,
with higher funding levels, and sought
opportunities to replicate the program\u2019s
innovative features on a wider basis. In the
new SAFETEA legislation (signed by
President Bush in August 2005), Congress
provided $852 million over six years for the
JARC program, but allocated the funds to
states for distribution to areas within the
state (i.e., areas over 200,000 in population;
areas with 50,000 to 200,000 in
population; and rural areas), rather than
through a federal discretionary program.
New requirements were added to encourage
more coordination among public, private,
and nonprofit transportation providers and
with certain other federal transit programs.
In addition, the federal matching share was
raised to 80 percent, up from the TEA-21
share of 50 percent. Other efforts to provide
access to jobs for low-income workers
include requiring TANF coordination plans
to include transportation and considering
transportation issues in funding for projects
under the Workforce Investment Act.

Scholars see sprawling patterns of
development as the cumulative result of many
contributing factors, including: some
people\u2019s preference for large-lot/low-density
housing; white flight from urban areas with
minority residents; lack of regional planning;
cities competing for development instead of
cooperating; redlining (or geographic and
racial discrimination by lenders and insurance
companies); crime or perceptions of it;
contaminated land or \u201cbrownfields\u201d in core
areas; restrictive suburban zoning that

mixed-use development; federal capital gains
tax rules that used to encourage people to buy
ever-larger homes; decades of low gasoline
prices; declining quality of central-city
schools; and massive federal highway
spending coupled with comparatively little
funding for public transportation.

Introduction: What Does
Workforce Development
Have to Do With
Smart Growth?

Ensuring that urban residents have
fair access to good jobs\u2014and the
ability to qualify for them\u2014is the
goal of the workforce development
movement. Advocates for smarter
growth, especially those coming from
an urban equity perspective, also see
workforce development as a central
issue in stabilizing neighborhoods
and stemming urban flight. But
despite these common interests, the
two movements seldom organize
together on these deep systemic links.

At stake is nothing less than the
future of American cities, and recent
trends do not bode well. The
decentralization of manufacturing
and retail employment is a decades-
long trend, but for the last two
decades, about half of U.S.
metropolitan areas have also seen
\u201cedge cities\u201d capture jobs in value-
added services such as finance,
insurance, and real estate\u2014the
traditional \u201cagglomeration
economies\u201d of the Central Business
District (CBD).4

technology will further favor
exurbs and small cities close to
major metro areas.5As one survey
concluded: \u201c[T]rends suggest that
non-central business district

the next two decades and that their
relative competitive position will
get worse without economic
development policies.\u201d6

To date, environment/open space
and transportation advocates have
largely driven the smart growth
debate. Although the changing
geography of work in America is
integral to the proliferation of
urban sprawl, the issue of jobs and
workforce development is an under-
developed aspect of the sprawl
analysis.

The movement for smarter growth
policies and practices would be
strengthened by a better jobs
analysis and leadership from those
who understand current trends in
workforce development. Left alone,
environmentalists and other
stakeholders might define the jobs
agenda in ways that are not in the
best interests of those who have
been isolated from new
opportunities created by growth. For
example, strategies driven only by a
desire to limit suburban growth and
save open space could actually harm
core-area residents by fueling
gentrification and displacement.
Similarly, unions that still view

sheep\u2019s clothing\u201d need to review new
evidence that indicates that smarter
growth real estate development
policies actually create more
construction jobs than sprawling
patterns of development. On the
other hand, if development
strategies include explicit ways to
target and link skills-development
and job creation to workers who
need them most, inner-city
neighborhoods can be stabilized,
the tax base for schools can be
preserved, and transit can remain a
viable commuting choice\u2014a pro-
worker, pro-environmentsolution.