In the past decades, USA metropolitan areas have experienced significant population growth and suburban development. At the same time, commuting time has lengthened and road congestion has increased. How to contain traffic growth in a context of suburban development has become a focus of urban transportation research and city and regional planning. This work interprets metropolitan wide commuting with a reference to the metropolitan wide growth trends. Three decades of census data (1980, 1990 and 2000) for two metropolitan areas (Boston and Atlanta) are used to illustrate the ...