Spatial mismatch

Spatial mismatch is the sociological, economic and political phenomenon in which employment opportunities for low-income people are located far away from the areas where low-income live. In the United States, this takes the form of high concentrations of poverty in central cities, with low-wage, low-skill employment opportunities concentrated in the suburbs.

William Julius Wilson in When Work Disappears (1996) popularized the term, but it was first used by John F. Kain in “Housing Segregation, Negro Employment, and Metropolitan Decentralization.” Quarterly Journal of Economics. May 1968. Vol 82 No 2. pp. 175-197.