The Emergence of the Super-Commuter: Update with 2010 Data

This update to the “Emergence of the Super-Commuter” report released in February 2012 uses recently released 2010 home-to-work flows data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Longitudinal Employer Household Dynamics OnTheMap tool to examine whether the super-commuting trend has continued to grow between 2009 and 2010, by analyzing 1-year and 8-year growth rates in where workers live. The report finds that while super-commuting growth rates have slowed between 2009 and 2010, the slowdown was primarily due to job market conditions, and super-commuting trends continue to outpace job growth trends in 9 out of the 10 counties profiled in this study. The report also distinguishes between two types of super-commuters: those who live along the combined metropolitan area’s periphery and those who travel less frequently and longer distances to each urban core county. It finds that for most cities, both types of super-commuters have been growing rapidly over the last decade, but these trends vary across cities.