Job-housing Balancean empirical analysis of Muslim migrants in Lanzhou city, China

Housing and job adaptability are two crucial themes for the adaptability of the urban migrant population. The purpose of this paper is to assess the status and influencing factors of the job-housing balance of Muslim migrants in Lanzhou city of China in order to serve as a guide for their management of housing and employment as well as the planning and development of mixed-use neighborhoods that integrate both labor productivity and residential living. Based on 2009 and 2018 surveys as well as the big data statistics of the Lanzhou migrant population, this paper studied the job-housing balance relationship under the influence of commuting and the distribution of mosques through GIS kernel density and spatial analysis, Manhattan Distance and Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW) interpolation. The study found that: 1) Lanzhou Muslim migrants tend to be concentrated in two residential zones (the areas around Xiaoxihu and Miaotanzi), forming a relatively concentrated employment zone at Xiaoxihu-Yiwu Trade Centre and its neighboring areas. There was an increasing trend in the overall job-housing balance from 2009 to 2018, whereby the job-housing balance was rather high at the Xiaoxihu-Xiguanshizi stretch and the Yantan-Dongbushichang stretch in 2009 while the job-housing balance was rather high at the Xiaoxihu-Xiguanshizi stretch in 2018. 2) job-housing balance of Muslim Migrants under regular commuting conditions is met whereby there is a 2 km (or less) job-housing Manhattan Distance or a 20 minute (or less) walking commute from one’s residence to workplace. 3) With regards to the distribution of mosques, job-housing balance is met with any one of the following conditions: The job-housing balance index is between 0.8-1.0 whereby the residence, workplace and mosque are within a 500m distance (or less) from each other; the residence, workplace and mosque are between a 501-5000m distance from each other;the job-housing balance index is both between 0.8-1.0 whereby the residence, workplace and mosque are within a 20 to 30 minute commute from each other.