Networks, commuting and spatial structures: An introduction

The interaction between home and workplace has been a central component of urban and regional economics theories (Clark et al. 2003). These authors also emphasize that it is the continuing separation of jobs and residences which produces much of the commuting, and these links are as relevant in the polycentric city as in the monocentric city. However, “[i]n practice, the dispersal of job opportunities has created a much more complicated behavioural response to the linkage between work and residence” (Clark et al. 2003, p.201). The relation between land use (residential and employment location) and commuting seems therefore rather complex and worth further exploration, despite the voluminous literature already existing on this issue.