Commuter Town - Causes

Causes

Commuter towns can arise for a number of different reasons. Sometimes, as in Sleepy Hollow, New York or Tiburon, California, a town loses its main source of employment, leaving its residents to seek work elsewhere. In other cases, a pleasant small town over time attracts more residents but not large businesses to employ them, requiring them to commute to employment centers. Another cause, particularly relevant in the American South and West, is the rapid growth of once-small cities. Owing largely to the earlier creation of the Interstate Highway System, the greatest growth was seen by the sprawling metropolitan areas of these cities. As a result many small cities were absorbed into the suburbs of these larger cities.

Often, however, commuter towns form when workers in a region cannot afford to live where they work and must seek residency in another town with a lower cost of living. The late 20th century Dot-com bubble and United States housing bubble drove housing costs in Californian metropolitan areas to historic highs, spawning exurban growth in adjacent counties. For example, most cities in Riverside County, California can be considered exurbs of Los Angeles and San Diego, in which most residents commute to Los Angeles and San Diego daily for work. As of 2003, over 80% of the workforce of Tracy, California was employed in the San Francisco Bay Area.

A related phenomenon is common in the resort towns of the American West that require large workforces, yet emphasize building larger single-family residences and other expensive housing. For example, the resort town of Jackson has spawned several nearby bedroom communities, including Victor, Idaho; Driggs, Idaho; and Alpine, Wyoming, where the majority of the Jackson workforce resides. Many of the workforce who serve The Hamptons also reside in communities more modest and more suburban than their workplace, giving rise to a daily reverse commuter flow from more dense to less dense areas.

In certain major European cites, such as London and Berlin, commuter towns were founded in response to bomb damage in World War II. Residents were relocated to semi-rural areas within a 50-mile (80 km) radius, firstly because much inner city housing had been destroyed, and secondly in order to stimulate development away from cities as the industrial infrastructure shifted from rail to road. Around London, several towns – such as Stevenage, Harlow, Basildon, and Crawley – were built for this purpose by the Commission for New Towns.