Commuter town

Commuters waiting for the morning train in Maplewood, New Jersey

A bedroom community, dormitory town, or commuter town 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 bedroom community 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. Bedroom communities 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.

Causes

Bedroom communities 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.

Effects

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.

Bedroom communities 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 cause substantial friction.

The number of bedroom comunities 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 bedroom communities to create disparities in municipal tax rates. Because the bedroom community 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.

List of bedroom communities

• Cary, North Carolina
• Oceano, California
• Santa Maria, California
• Orinda, California
• Peterlee, England
• East Kilbride, Scotland
• Orpington, England
• Hönow, Germany
• Getafe, Spain
• L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Spain
• Amadora, Portugal
• Aparecida de Goiânia, Brazil
• Meyrin, Switzerland
• Russell, Ontario, Canada
• Embrun, Ontario, Canada (partial)

See also

• Edge city
• Boomburbs
• Microdistrict