Commuting
- LAST REVIEWED: 25 February 2014
- LAST MODIFIED: 25 February 2014
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199874002-0033
- LAST REVIEWED: 25 February 2014
- LAST MODIFIED: 25 February 2014
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199874002-0033
Introduction
Commuting—the travel between place of residence and workplace that many people undertake daily—emerged on a large scale during the Industrial Revolution when, for the first time, work locations were separated from places of residence. Commuting is significant because it generates a large proportion of all travel and is often concentrated in peak hours, adding to costly congestion. Geographers have examined commuting to learn how place shapes different forms of economic activity and how the relations between paid work and unpaid work that are expressed in commuting patterns influence the form of urban areas. For many low-income minorities, residential segregation increases the length and cost of work trips, limiting their economic opportunities. Commuting has also captured the attention of urban planners who have investigated how land use patterns may influence commuting distances and modes. There is also growing interest in the links between commuting and carbon emissions and the health effects of commuting, particularly its relation to obesity. Much of the geographical research about commuting has concentrated on highly developed societies although interest in commuting in less developed societies is increasing.
General Overviews
There are few overviews of commuting in the geographical literature; however, the topic is often discussed as part of transportation geography. For example, in Knowles, et al. 2008 and Hanson and Giuliano 2004, commuting is considered an important aspect of urban travel patterns. The authors of Chapin and Hightower 1965 were some of the first to draw attention to commuting as a critical activity that geographers should investigate. Hagerstrand 1970 introduced the notion that each person’s ability to travel from one location to another for daily activities is constrained by technology, the conflicting schedule of various activities, and legal, social, and political limitations such as the minimum age for a driver’s license. Law 1999 critiqued the geographical literature for its emphasis on the journey to work and neglect of many other trips that are essential parts of daily life. Cresswell 2006 also argues that mobility of all types should be the focus of geographical research. Urry 2002 and Larsen, et al. 2006 expand on this argument, noting that the co-presence which is a prerequisite for many social interactions can be achieved only by travel.
Chapin F. Stuart, Jr., and Henry C. Hightower. “Household Activity Patterns and Land Use.” Journal of the American Association of Planning 31.3 (1965): 222–231.
DOI: 10.1080/01944366508978169
This is the first article to articulate the difficulties that segregated land use planning creates daily for many residents of American cities. It has shaped transportation planning for almost fifty years.
Cresswell, Tim. On the Move: Mobility in the Modern Western World. London: Routledge, 2006.
In this recent book, Cresswell reviews contemporary geographical views of mobility. He emphasizes that mobility is a right and it plays an important role in people’s sense of belonging to different places.
Hagerstrand, Torsten. “What about People in Regional Science?” Papers of the Regional Science Association 24 (1970): 7–21.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1435-5597.1970.tb01464.x
Hagerstrand draws attention to everyday activities and the ways that technology and society constrain them. This is a seminal article that lays out the foundations of contemporary approaches to commuting in time-space geography.
Hanson, Susan, and Genevieve Giuliano. The Geography of Urban Transportation. 3d ed. New York: Guilford, 2004.
This is a comprehensive introduction to all aspects of urban transportation. Commuting is considered in several chapters on urban transportation that examine current travel patterns in cities, how planners model demand for transportation, and the social justice questions that result.
Knowles, Richard, Jon Shaw, and Iain Docherty. Transport Geographies: Mobilities, Flows and Spaces. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2008.
This textbook situates geographical studies of commuting in a broad review of the field of transportation geography that ranges from discussion of the impact of transportation on economic development to future directions in transportation and transportation geographies.
Larsen, Jonas, John Urry, and Kay Axhausen. Mobilities, Networks, Geographies. London: Ashgate, 2006.
The authors examine how and why people travel in an era of virtual communications. Their analysis highlights how mobility is required to establish and maintain many social networks.
Law, Robyn. “Beyond ‘Women and Transport’: Towards New Geographies of Gender and Daily Mobility.” Progress in Human Geography 23.4 (1999): 567–588.
DOI: 10.1191/030913299666161864
Law critiques the emphasis on the journey to work in geographical analyses of women’s travel. She advocates a broader conceptualization of daily mobility that highlights the abilities of men and women to travel for all of their daily needs, not just the trip to work.
Urry, John. “Mobility and Proximity.” Sociology 36.2 (2002): 255–274.
DOI: 10.1177/0038038502036002002
In this provocative discussion of the social necessity of travel, Urry argues that geographers have not paid much attention to the social bases of travel and the social inclusion and exclusion that results from differences in the capacity to travel.
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login.
How to Subscribe
Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here.
Article
- Abortion, Geographies of
- Accessing and Visualizing Archived Weather and Climate Dat...
- Activity Space
- Actor Network Theory (ANT)
- Age, Geographies of
- Agent-based Modeling
- Agricultural Geography
- Agricultural Meteorology/Climatology
- Animal Geographies
- Anthropocene and Geography, The
- Anthropogenic Climate Change
- Applied Geography
- Arctic Climatology
- Arctic, The
- Art and Geography
- Assemblage
- Assessment in Geography Education
- Atmospheric Composition and Structure
- Automobility
- Aviation Meteorology
- Beer, Geography of
- Behavioral and Cognitive Geography
- Belonging
- Belt and Road Initiative
- Biodiversity Conservation
- Biodiversity Gradients
- Biogeography
- Biogeomorphology and Zoogeomorphology
- Biometric Technologies
- Biopedoturbation
- Body, Geographies of the
- Borders and Boundaries
- Brownfields
- Carbon Cycle
- Carceral Geographies
- Cartography
- Cartography, History of
- Cartography, Mapping, and War
- Chicago School
- Children and Childhood, Geographies of
- Citizenship
- Climate Literacy and Education
- Climatology
- Communication
- Community Mapping
- Commuting
- Comparative Urbanism
- Complexity
- Conservation Biogeography
- Consumption, Geographies of
- Crime Analysis, GIS and
- Crime, Geography of
- Critical GIS
- Critical Historical Geography
- Critical Military Geographies
- Cultural Ecology and Human Ecology
- Cultural Geography
- Cultural Landscape
- CyberGIS
- Cyberspace, Geography of
- Desertification
- Developing World
- Development, Regional
- Development Theory
- Disability, Geography of
- Disease, Geography of
- Drones, Geography of
- Drought
- Drugs, Geography of
- Economic Geography
- Economic Historical Geography
- Edge Cities and Urban Sprawl
- Education (K-12), Geography
- El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO)
- Elderly, Geography and the
- Electoral Geography
- Empire, Geography and
- Energy, Geographies of
- Energy, Renewable
- Energy Resources and Use
- Environment and Development
- Environmental Electronic Sensing Systems
- Environmental Justice
- Ethics, Geographers and
- Ethics, Geography and
- Ethnicity
- Ethnography
- Ethnonationalism
- Everyday Life, Geography and
- Extreme Heat
- Family, Geographies of the
- Feminist Geography
- Fieldwork
- Film, Geography and
- Finance, Geography of
- Financial Geographies of Debt and Crisis
- Fluvial Geomorphology
- Folk Culture and Geography
- Future, Geographies of the
- Gender and Geography
- Gentrification
- Geocomputation in Geography Education
- Geographic Information Science
- Geographic Methods: Archival Research
- Geographic Methods: Discourse Analysis
- Geographic Methods: Interviews
- Geographic Methods: Life Writing Analysis
- Geographic Methods: Visual Analysis
- Geographic Thought (US)
- Geographic Vulnerability to Climate Change
- Geographies of Affect
- Geographies of Diplomacy
- Geographies of Education
- Geographies of Resilience
- Geography and Class
- Geography Education, GeoCapabilities in
- Geography, Gramsci and
- Geography, Legal
- Geography of Biofuels
- Geography of Food
- Geography of Hunger and Famine
- Geography of Industrialization
- Geography of Public Policy
- Geography of Resources
- Geopolitics
- Geopolitics, Energy and
- Geospatial Artificial Intelligence (GeoAI)
- GIS and Computational Social Sciences
- GIS and Health
- GIS and Remote Sensing Applications in Geomorphology
- GIS and Virtual Reality
- GIS applications in Human Geography
- GIS, Ethics of
- GIS, Geospatial Technology, and Spatial Thinking in Geogra...
- GIS, Historical
- GIS, History of
- GIS, Space-Time
- Glacial and Periglacial Geomorphology
- Glaciers, Geography of
- Globalization
- Health Care, Geography of
- Hegemony and Geographic Knowledge
- Historical Geography
- Historical Mobilities
- Histories of Protest and Social Movements
- History, Environmental
- Homelessness
- Human Dynamics, GIScience of
- Human Geographies of Outer Space
- Human Trafficking
- Humanistic Geography
- Human-Landscape Interactions
- Humor, Geographies of
- Hurricanes
- Hydroclimatology and Climate Variability
- Hydrology
- Identity and Place
- "Imagining a Better Future through Place": Geographies of ...
- Immigration and Immigrants
- Indigenous Peoples and the Global Indigenous Movement
- Informal Economy
- Innovation, Geography of
- Intelligence, Geographical
- Islands, Human Geography and
- Justice, Geography of
- Knowledge Economy: Spatial Approaches
- Knowledge, Geography of
- Labor, Geography of
- Land Use and Cover Change
- Land-Atmosphere Interactions
- Landscape Interpretation
- Literature, Geography and
- Location Theory
- Marine Biogeography
- Marine Conservation and Fisheries Management
- Media Geography
- Medical Geography
- Migration
- Migration, International Student
- Military Geographies and the Environment
- Military Geographies of Popular Culture
- Military Geographies of Urban Space and War
- Military Geography
- Moonsoons, Geography of
- Mountain Geography
- Mountain Meteorology
- Music, Sound, and Auditory Culture, Geographies of
- National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in Geog...
- Nations and Nationalism
- Natural Hazards and Risk
- Nature-Society Theory
- Neogeography
- New Urbanism
- Nightlife
- Non-representational Theory
- Nuclear War, Geographies of
- Nutrition Transition, The
- Oceans
- Orientalism and Geography
- Participatory Action Research
- Peace, Geographies of
- Pedagogical Content Knowledge in Geography Education
- Perspectives in Geography Internships
- Phenology and Climate
- Photographic and Video Methods in Geography
- Physical Geography
- Place
- Polar Geography
- Policy Mobilities
- Political Ecology
- Political Geography
- Political Geology
- Popular Culture, Geography and
- Population Geography
- Ports and Maritime Trade
- Postcolonialism
- Postmodernism and Poststructuralism
- Pragmatism, Geographies of
- Producer Services
- Psychogeography
- Public Participation GIS, Participatory GIS, and Participa...
- Qualitative GIS
- Qualitative Methods
- Quantitative Methods in Human Geography
- Questionnaires
- Race and Racism
- Refugees, Geography of
- Religion, Geographies of
- Retail Trade, Geography of
- Rural Geography
- Science and Technology Studies (STS) in Geography
- Sea-Level Research, Quaternary
- Security and Securitization, Geographies of
- Segregation, Ethnic and Racial
- Service Industries, Geography of
- Settlement Geography
- Sexuality, Geography of
- Slope Processes
- Social Justice
- Social Media Analytics
- Soils, Diversity of
- Sonic Methods in Geography
- Spatial Analysis
- Spatial Autocorrelation
- Sports, Geography of
- Sustainability Education at the School Level, Geography an...
- Sustainability Science
- Sustainable Agriculture
- Synoptic Climatology
- Technological Change, Geography of
- Telecommunications
- Teleconnections, Atmospheric
- Terrestrial Snow, Measurement of
- Territory and Territoriality
- Terrorism, Geography of
- The Climate Security Nexus
- The Voluntary Sector and Geography
- Time, Geographies of
- Time Geography
- Time-Space Compression
- Tourism Geography
- Touristification
- Transnational Corporations
- Unoccupied Aircraft Systems
- Urban Geography
- Urban Heritage
- Urban Historical Geography
- Urban Meteorology and Climatology
- Urban Planning and Geography
- Urban Political Ecology
- Urban Sustainability
- Visualizations
- Vulnerability, Risk, and Hazards
- Vulnerability to Climate Change
- War on Terror, Geographies of the
- Water
- Weather and Climate Damage Studies
- Wetlands
- Whiteness, Geographies of
- Wine, Geography of
- World Cities
- Young People's Geography