Intrametropolitan Trade: Understanding the Interdependency of the Central-City and Edge Cities

Recent research in urban and regional economics has shown that cities have taken on a polycentric (as opposed to monocentric) form. Much attention has focused on identifying and categorizing the numerous employment centers in a vast number of metropolitan areas. However, these studies have repeatedly demonstrated that well less than half of all employment in a metropolitan area is located within these centers. This paper uses a new approach, the tabulation of current accounts in labor services for municipalities, to examine employment patterns both inside and outside of employment centers in metropolitan Cleveland. Significant specialization is found both inside and outside of centers, and suburbs are labeled as either net importers or net exporters of labor services. Approximately $23.8 billion of labor services were traded between municipalities in the Cleveland metropolitan area in 1994.