K-State Economists Track Kansans’ Commuting Patterns: Data Indicate ‘Job Center,’ ‘Bedroom’ Counties 1/27/05

K-State Economists Track Kansans’ Commuting Patterns:
Data Indicate ‘Job Center,’ ‘Bedroom’ Counties

MANHATTAN, Kan. – Who is connected to whom? Kansas State University economists have studied commute-to-work patterns in Kansas to identify which counties are “job centers” and which are “bedroom counties.”

Some Kansas Counties ‘BedroomCounties,’Others are ‘Job Centers’

MANHATTAN, Kan. – A new report from Kansas State University Research and Extension economists David Darling and Craig Heiman shows which Kansas counties could be considered bedroom counties and which could be considered job centers. The report was developed using data compiled by the Kansas Department of Transportation. The data originated from the 2000 Census of Population.

The top 10 Kansas bedroom counties (in descending order, based on a net commuting pattern in versus out) were:

* Osage (47 percent)

* Wabaunsee (43 percent)

* Jefferson (42 percent)

* Chase (36 percent)

* Ottawa (35 percent)

* Miami (31 percent)

* Butler (30 percent)

* Linn (28 percent)

* Sumner (26 percent)

*Anderson (25 percent).

The top 10 job center counties, (in ascending order, based on a net commuting pattern in reverse out) were:

* Seward (-12 percent)

* Shawnee (-12 percent)

* Stanton (-12 percent)

* Saline (-10 percent)

* Sedgwick (-9 percent)

* Morton (-9 percent)

* Montgomery (-8 percent)

* Mitchell (-7 percent)

* Riley (-6 percent)

* Wyandotte (-6 percent).

The full report can be accessed online at http://www.agecon.ksu.edu/ddarling and click on CD Study Reports.

A county would be considered a job center if the number of people who work in the county exceeds the number of people who live in the county, said K-State Research and Extension agricultural economist David Darling. In such situations, it is apparent that the net flow of people coming into the county to work is greater than the net flow going out of the county to work in another county.

A bedroom county is where more people live in the county than work in the county – the daily net flow of people coming into work is smaller than the net flow out.

“Residents and community leaders may well be interested in this information because it could give them ideas about areas they might want to strengthen in their counties,” said David Darling, a community development specialist with K-State Research and Extension.

“Job center counties have an advantage because they have more fiscal capacity,” said Darling, who along with co-author, Craig Heiman wrote the report “Labor Market Analysis Based on Commuter Flows.” “They can tax businesses and consumers, not just households who own a home and may do some shopping locally.”

The report, produced in cooperation with the Kansas Department of Transportation, using its 2000 census data, can be found online at http://www.agecon.ksu.edu/ddarling . Click on CD Study Reports.

Darling acknowledged that residents of some bedroom communities prefer to keep them that way, despite the smaller fiscal capacity.

“Growth comes with costs that many do not wish to bear such as traffic congestion and air pollution,” he said.

Some counties, such as Wyandotte County, are both job centers and bedroom counties, Darling said. However, in Wyandotte County the net flow shows an in-commuting pattern. In 2000, 157,882 people lived in Wyandotte County. The number employed was 66,696. Of that number, 31,919 lived in the county and also worked in the county. The remaining 34,777 people commuted out of the county to work in other counties. Although 76,028 people made up the work force in Wyandotte County, 44,109 of them came into the county to work. The large number of out-commuters amounted to 52 percent of the working population in the county. The other large number of commuters coming in to work comprised 58 percent of the county’s work force, he said.

“While large numbers of workers are commuting across the (Wyandotte) county boundary, the net effect of all this commuting is a pattern of in-commuting,” Darling said.

Saline County is an obvious job center, he said, with commuters from surrounding counties coming to work in Salina. Seward County also has a low percent of out-commuters and a high percentage of in-commuters.

Conversely, Osage County, tabbed a bedroom county by the report, has a high percentage of out-commuters and a low percentage of in-commuters.

“People living in one county often work in another county and these patterns suggest that the economies of counties are linked,” Darling said. “In an ideal world, the political units and the economic units would perfectly align, but they don’t. So the challenge is to form multi-county organizations to undertake economical initiatives. For example, Wichita officials have set up an organization of representatives from across their (several county) region to create efficiencies in the metropolitan labor market.”

K-State Research and Extension is a short name for the Kansas State University Agricultural Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension Service, a program designed to generate and distribute useful knowledge for the well-being of Kansans. Supported by county, state, federal and private funds, the program has county Extension offices, experiment fields, area Extension offices and regional research centers statewide. Its headquarters is on the K-State campus, Manhattan.