Regional Snapshot is a monthly publication that compiles the latest data to explore important regional issues.
Employment Centers Drive Commuter Patterns
Travel patterns in the Atlanta region are influenced, in large part, by the spatial relationship between where people live and where they work. This Regional Snapshot, using data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s “OnTheMap” program, explores this relationship further by focusing on workers coming into and out of the region’s 10 major employment centers. It finds that major employment centers generally lack housing options, which necessitates workers commuting in for work. That relationship doesn’t always hold, however.
This Snapshot also looks at the directions and the counties from which workers are most likely to commute to each of the 10 major employment centers.
Direction of Travel into Employment Centers
Figure 1 shows, by percentage of total workers, which direction commuters are coming from. For example, almost 20 percent of all workers in the Emory employment center come from the northeast of that center, the highest percentage. Workers commuting from the southeast and east also comprise a high percentage of total workers in that center. Read the entire Snapshot to view all 10 of the region's major employment centers.