Locally and nationally, jobs are moving away from city centers—especially low-income and minority neighborhoods—making it harder for residents there to find work without having to travel farther.
That’s what Brookings senior research assistant Natalie Holmes discovered when she and colleagues looked at census tracts in major metro areas to see if the number of nearby jobs increased or fell since 2000.
"For most people in metropolitan America, between 2000 and 2012, they saw the number of jobs they were near decline," Holmes said. "And that’s especially pronounced in Northeastern Ohio.”
More pronounced than anywhere else in the country, in fact.
But some parts of the region did gain employment—mostly places between Cleveland and Akron, such as Hinckley, Brunswick, Medina, Richfield and Aurora.
In the losing jobs column: pretty much everywhere else in the area, especially major cities and the suburbs immediately around them. Though these areas still retain the most jobs overall, they haven't recovered what's been lost since 2000.
