Commuter town

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For examples of commuter towns see List of bedroom communities

A commuter town, also known as a bedroom community (U.S. usage), dormitory town (UK, Commonwealth and Republic of Ireland usage), or less commonly dormitory village (UK and Commonwealth) is a community that is primarily residential in character, with most of its workers commuting to a nearby town or city to earn their livelihood.

The distinction between a suburb and a commuter town is not always clear. As a general rule, suburbs are developed in areas adjacent to main employment centers, whereas bedroom communities have no large businesses and most residents commute to employment centers some distance away. Commuter towns may be in rural or semi-rural areas, but urban sprawl and conurbation have erased clear lines among towns and cities in large metropolitan areas.

1 Causes
2 Effects
3 References
4 See also

[edit] Causes

Commuter towns can arise for a number of different reasons. Sometimes, a town loses its main source of employment, leading 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 elsewhere. Another cause, particularly relevant in the American South and West, is the rapid growth of once-small cities that has occurred. 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 the workers in a region cannot afford to live in the particular town in which they are employed and are forced to seek residency in another town with a lower cost of living. This phenomenon is becoming increasingly common in the American West, where resort towns require large workforces but place an emphasis on building "McMansions", and other types of extremely expensive housing. For example, the resort town of Jackson, Wyoming has spawned several bedroom communities nearby, including Victor, Idaho; Driggs, Idaho; and Alpine, Wyoming, where the majority of the Jackson workforce resides.

In the United States, some caucasians also leave the cities to avoid the growth of minority populations. Before the passage of the Civil Rights Act, many of the bedroom communities to which they moved were sundown towns, where non-whites were not not allowed in town after dark. The effects of these old policies linger, resulting in far less ethnic diversity in these towns.

[edit] Effects

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Since commuters tend to be wealthier and small town housing markets tend to be weaker than city housing markets, the development of a bedroom community tends to raise local housing prices and attract upscale service businesses in a process called gentrification. Long-time residents are often displaced by new commuter residents due to the rising house prices. This can also be influenced by zoning restrictions in urbanized areas that prevent the construction of suitable housing closer to places of employment.

Commuter towns also naturally tend to spur the development of roads and public transportation systems. These generally take the form of light rail lines extended from the city center to the commuter town and new or expanded highways, whose construction and traffic can lead to urban sprawl which in turn can cause substantial friction.

The number of commuter towns has increased in the U.S. and the UK since the 1960s because of a trend for people to move out of the cities into the surrounding green belt.

In the United States, it is common for commuter towns to create disparities in municipal tax rates. Because the commuter town collects few business taxes, individuals are often forced to pay the brunt of the public operating budget in higher property or income taxes. This can also lead these municipalities scrambling to encourage commercial growth once an established residential base has been reached.

[edit] References

Central City White Flight: Racial and Nonracial Causes

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