The Distribution of Population and Employment in a Polycentric City: The Case of Los Angeles

"The distribution of population and employment in metropolitan Los Angeles in 1970 and 1980 is examined in this paper. Population continued to disperse in the 1970s, whereas the geographical distribution of employment combined job clustering around a few major employment centers with a high degree of general job dispersion. In Los Angeles polycentrism has been associated with shorter work trips, particularly intracounty trips in the more peripheral counties." Population data are for 2,403 comparable census tracts for 1970 and 1980; data concerning geographical employment distribution are from the 1980 census.