Population Change and Jobs–Housing Balance: A Descriptive Comparison of Central and Non-Central Cities in Metropolitan Areas

Achieving a balance between jobs and housing can reduce commuting distances and encourage residents to live and work within the same city. However, maintaining this balance may be challenging in shrinking cities, where population decline is often accompanied by housing vacancies and declining employment opportunities. Although previous studies have examined jobs–housing balance and urban shrinkage separately, little is known about how jobs–housing balance changes in the context of population decline. Using the 2010–2014 and 2015–2019 American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year estimates and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) classification of principal cities, this study classified 677 U.S. cities into four groups based on population change and metropolitan location. Descriptive analysis was conducted to compare changes in jobs–housing balance across these groups using a newly proposed jobs–housing balance index. The results show that both growing and shrinking central cities experienced improvements in jobs–housing balance, although the mechanisms underlying these improvements differed. In contrast, shrinking non-central cities were the only group to exhibit a deterioration in jobs–housing balance. These findings suggest that strengthening employment opportunities in shrinking non-central cities may help improve jobs–housing balance and contribute to more sustainable urban development.