Application of the local colocation quotient method in jobs-housing balance measurement based on mobile phone data: A case study of Nanjing City

The issue of jobs-housing balance concerns the sustainable development of cities and the well-being of residents. Conventional measurement approaches, however, often fall short due to the zoning problem (as a subproblem of the modifiable areal unit problem), leading to inconsistent and inaccurate results depending on the spatial partitioning scheme applied. This paper discusses the application and advantages of the local colocation quotient method in jobs-housing balance measurement. A case study of Nanjing, China, is selected, and mobile location data are used to obtain the jobs and housing locations of workers. Then, the adjusted jobs-workers ratio and the local colocation quotient values that reflect the degree of jobs-housing balance are calculated and compared by category. The results show that on the one hand, due to the zoning effect, when points are aggregated into spatial units, some points with different spatial characteristics are masked by the dominant value of the units; on the other hand, the local colocation quotient method can solve the zoning problem and obtain more fine-scale and accurate results, thus providing a new analytical tool and perspective for this field.