6533b859fe1ef96bd12b749b

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Intra-urban spatial distributions of population and employment : the case of the agglomeration of Dijon, 1999

subject

description

The aim of this paper is to analyze the intra-urban spatial distributions of population and employment in the agglomeration of Dijon (regional capital of Burgundy, France). We study whether this agglomeration has followed the general tendency of job decentralization observed in most urban areas or whether it is still characterized by a monocentric pattern. In that purpose, we use a sample of 136 observations at the communal and at the IRIS (infra-urban statistical area) levels with 1999 census data and the employment database SIRENE (INSEE). First; we study the spatial pattern of total employment and employment density using exploratory spatial data analysis. Apart from the CBD, few IRIS are found to be statistically significant, a result contrasting with those found using standard methods of subcenter identification with employment cut-offs. Next, in order to examine the spatialdistribution of residential population density, we estimate and compare different specifications: exponential negative, spline-exponential and multicentric density functions. Moreover, spatial autocorrelation is controlledfor by using the appropriate spatial econometric techniques. The splineexponential is found to perform the best, highlighting the monocentric character o f the agglomeration of Dijon.