Impacts of Spatial Mismatch on Commuting Time of Urban Residents in China

In many studies on spatial mismatch between residential and employment locations, job accessibility has been measured. However, the apparent disadvantages of the traditional measurement methods on the studies of Chinese cities have been noted. This paper proposes an optimized method for job accessibility measurement by introducing the weight coefficient of job opportunity, which quantifies the degree of uneven distribution of job opportunity in the Chinese cities. Taking Nanjing city for example, this new method was used to measure the spatial distribution of job opportunity, investigate the spatial patterns and analyze the influences of job accessibility on commuting behaviour. The results show that the distribution of job accessibility in Nanjing exhibits the different spatial patterns and mechanisms compared with US cases.