Getting to Work in Spite of the Odds: Commuting Patterns of African Americans in Rochester and Buffalo, New York‪.‬

Differences in the residential, employment, and household characteristics of African Americans and European Americans are well documented, but racial differences in the journey to work are still not well known. Compared to the past, there are now more studies about the commuting behavior of African Americans, but the specific impact of the exodus of jobs to suburban locations on African American men and women who live in inner cities is still understudied. One study of Buffalo, NY examined racial differences in commuting, but it focused only on women (Johnston-Anumonwo 1995). In a follow-up study, men were included in the analysis (Johnston-Anumonwo, 1997), but both sets of inquiries concentrated on employment characteristics and ignored household characteristics which are likely to feature significantly for female workers. The purpose of the present study is to examine the question of racial differences in locational access to jobs in Rochester, NY and draw parallels with the previous findings for Buffalo, NY. While presenting new data for Rochester, the study retains the critical inquiry on whether suburban employment imposes longer commute times on African Americans than on European Americans, but extends the inquiry to see if presence of children in the home affects workers' commute lengths. The results for Rochester strongly complement those for Buffalo and are consistent with the spatial mismatch hypothesis, which posited that African Americans suffer from distant suburban employment.