The landscape has been telling the story, and now a Brookings Institution study of the country's top 98 metro areas quantifies it: Jobs in Rochester have been moving farther away from the city.

Between 1998 and 2006 (the latest figures in the study), the Brookings study says, we gained 907 jobs within 35-miles of downtown. But within 3 miles of downtown, jobs dropped by 1.9 percent. Where was the job growth? More than 10 miles out.

The breakdown: in 2006, 32 percent of the jobs were within 3 miles of downtown, 47.3 percent were within 3 and 10 miles of downtown, and 20.7 percent were more than 10 miles outside of downtown.

The same thing's happening throughout the country. And in fact, the job sprawl's worse in the largest metropolitan areas, where in some cases more than half of the jobs are located more than 10 miles away from downtown. Overall, 21 percent of the jobs were located within 3 miles of downtown. Forty-five percent were located more than 10 miles out.