Urban Economics

Abstract:  This paper presents an argument for considering issues of class in analyses of communicative planning projects. In these projects, class interests tend to be obscured by the contemporary preoccupation with the class-ambiguous category of “community”. Through a case study of a project of urban redevelopment at King's Cross in London, we conceptualize and map class interests in an urban redevelopment project. Three aspects of the planning process that contain clear class effects are looked at: the amount of office space, the flexibility of plans, and the appropriation of the urban environment as exchange or use value. These aspects structure the urban redevelopment but are external to the communicative planning process. The opposition to the redevelopment has in the planning discourse been articulated as “community”-based rather than in class-sensitive terms. We finally present three strategies for reinserting issues of class into planning theory and practice.

In this paper, we develop and estimate a model that decomposes the variance in office vacancy rates into market-specific, time-specific, and random components. The results indicate significant differences in natural vacancy rates across markets. We also find some persistence in deviations from these natural vacancy rates. The analysis is applied to both central business district (CBD) and suburban office markets. We find that natural vacancy rates differ across CBD markets and across suburban markets. Further, the persistence of disequilibrium in one CBD market seems to differ significantly from that in another. This is not shown to be true for suburban markets.

The currently dominant neoclassical models of urban ground rents and housing distribution as well us recent alternatives along neoricardian or Ricardian-Marxian lines display major weaknesses which derive from the problems inherent in the concept of dilferentiai rents and its pure competition presuppositions. The paper argues that an effective alternative can be developed on the basis of Chamberlin's theory of monopolistic competition. The formal structure of such a model simplifies greatly the matter of the determination of land prices and incorporates with ease difficult aspects such as the role of public controls. In addition, it offers a much needed theoretically valid integration of land price theory with operationally powerful Lowry-type models. The most interesting implication, however, of a monopolistic competition model is that the venerated 'law' of differential rents must be thoroughly rejected on both theoretical and practical grounds.

Housing units within small and medium multi-family (SMMF) properties, defined as buildings with 2 to 49 units, comprise over 20% of the U.S. housing stock and are located primarily within the central cities or suburbs of metropolitan areas. However, this category of properties has sometimes been overlooked both in the media as well as in research, which have focused instead on the single-family and large multi-family (over 50 units) categories. Amalgamating the American Community Survey, American Housing Survey, and DataQuick databases, this study situates this segment of the U.S. housing stock in context by looking at cross-category comparisons and change over time. We map the geographic distribution of SMMF properties, describe their characteristics, and evaluate the degree to which they contribute to affordability within their specific market areas. Our data sets allow a rich examination of the variations both within the SMMF category and in comparison to the singlefamily and large multi-family property categories. The resulting analyses allow us to draw policy-relevant conclusions about this large segment of the housing stock and its importance in shaping housing supply and affordability at a national and regional level.

There is a large literature on the existence of agglomeration economies, as shown in the surveys by Moomaw (1983) or Gerking (1993). The benefits of these economies arise from multiple sources, but some negative externalities might also emerge. Within the hierarchical urban system, cities at different ranks (different size) take on different economic functions with variant 'efficient sizes' (Capello and Camagni, 2000) and, indeed, the distributions of cities' relative size have been stable in many countries (Black and Henderson, 1999; Eaton and Eckstein, 1997; Nitsch, 2005) and, in many cases they obey the Zipf's law (Gabaix, 1999). If a city is able to adjust its spatial structure to offset the negative exter- nalities due to its size, it will be able to keep growing. If that is not possible, it might be more convenient to transit from a monocentric to a polycentric structure, which is usually considered as a possible strategy to eliminate diseconomies in urban econ...

This paper presents estimates of land value change and other measures of real estate value change for the Boston area's 78 towns and cities over the past 100 years. A flattening of the real estate value gradient over time is demonstrated. Given the pattern of land ownership in the Boston area, a higher rate of value increases at greater distances from the center is shown to imply a regressive distribution of capital gains with respect to wealth among the homeowner population. Returns to homeowning are compared with returns to alternative business assets indicating some possible factors in the persistence of wealth inequality.

There is little credible evidence on whether price discrimination exists in the housing market. Using a large sample of single-family home sales from Florida where both the race of the seller and buyer are known, we present evidence using the traditional and Harding et al. [HRS, Harding, J.P., Rosenthal, S., Sirmans, D.F., 2003. Establishing bargaining power in the market for existing homes. The Review of Economics and Statistics 85, (1) 178-188] approaches to empirical estimation. Omitted variable bias is found to plague the traditional approach. Results from following the HRS approach indicate that price discrimination exists by whites and Hispanics against blacks and Asians. Price discrimination against blacks is restricted to non-majority black neighborhoods and is smaller in magnitude in neighborhoods containing younger and more educated homeowners. (K. Ihlanfeldt).

China is home to one-fifth of the world's population and that population is increasingly urban. The landscape is also urbanizing. Although there are studies that focus on specific elements of urban growth, there is very little empirical work that incorporates feedbacks and linkages to assess the interactions between the dynamics of urban growth and their environmental impacts. In this study, we develop a system dynamics simulation model of the drivers and environmental impacts of urban growth, using Shenzhen, South China, as a case study. We identify three phases of urban growth and develop scenarios to evaluate the impact of urban growth on several environmental indicators: land use, air quality, and demand for water and energy. The results show that all developable land will be urban by 2020 and the increase in the number of vehicles will be a major source of air pollution. Demand for water and electricity will rise, and the city will become increasingly vulnerable to shortages of either. The scenarios also show that there will be improvements in local environmental quality as a result of increasing affluence and economic growth. However, the environmental impacts outside of Shenzhen may increase as demands for natural resources increase and Shenzhen pushes its manufacturing industries out of the municipality. The findings may also portend to changes other cities in China and elsewhere in the developing world may experience as they continue to industrialize.

Specification tests using stochastic bottleneck models of airport congestion investigate whether dominant airlines internalize or ignore self-imposed delays at twenty-seven major US airports. Data on flight times determine the airport's landing and takeoff delays for every minute of operation during peak travel days. Dynamic congestion functions based on stochastic-queuing theory separately identify delays that aircraft experience directly, impose internally on their airline's other aircraft, or impose externally on other airlines. Specification tests largely reject internalization and fail to reject non-internalization by dominant airlines. Optimal pricing should value all time using non-dominant aircraft time values and treat all delays as external.

A general equilibrium model is constructed to study tax competition, where local governments compete for capital by holding down property tax rates and public expenditure levels. An exact definition of tax competition is provided, and both the existence and nonexistence of tax competition are shown to be theoretically possible. It is argued, however, that tax competition must occur under empirically reasonable conditions. Inefficiency in public production is also explicitly modeled. The amount of capital used to produce a given level of public service output is shown to be greater than that which is required to minimize costs evaluated at the prices facing private firms.

We analyze appreciation rates across comparable desi undesignated neighborhoods in Memphis, Tennessee. Using apprecia potentially nullifies the objection to using assessed values in such an a also mitigating some of the bias inherent in the differences between oth designated and undesignated neighborhoods. Nonetheless, in accord w studies, after controlling for numerous housing characteristics, we find in neighborhoods designated historical by the Memphis Landmarks Com appreciation r gnated and tion rates nalysis, while erwise similar ith previous that properties mission had ates above those in other similar neighborhoods. We also find that new properties benefit as much, perhaps even more, than older properties from being within a historic district.

"Praca zawiera refleksje na temat konsumpcji miejskiej, będące autorską propozycją analizowania specyfiki spożywania produktów miasta. W trakcie omawiania poszczególnych aspektów tego rodzaju konsumpcji uwzględniono szeroki kontekst implikacji różnych jej cech w procesach gospodarowania zasobami miejskimi. Generalnym celem pracy było stworzenie nowego, kompleksowego podejścia do analizowania konsumpcyjnych aspektów funkcjonowania miast, nadającego się do wykorzystania na etapach diagnozowania potrzeb różnych grup ich użytkowników oraz określania sposobów ich zaspokajania. Szczególnie oryginalnym ujęciem jest propozycja diagnozowania popytu miejskiego, w tym wyznaczania rozmiarów zainteresowania produktami miast z uwzględnieniem ich znaczenia w procesie pozyskiwania i utrzymywania działalności użytkowników różnych miejsc w mieście.
Zamierzeniem pracy było również osiągniecie kilku celów poznawczych, w tym sprecyzowanie pojęcia konsumpcji miejskiej oraz jego cech, rozpoznanie uwarunkowań dotyczących procesów zaspokajania potrzeb organizowanych z wykorzystaniem specyficznych cech zasobów miejskich, weryfikowanie dorobku naukowego dotyczącego konsumpcyjnych aspektów realizacji i zmian funkcji miast. Do celów metodologicznych pracy zaliczyć można przede wszystkim próbę sformułowania metod analizy składowych konsumpcji miejskiej: diagnozy oferentów tego rodzaju konsumpcji, identyfikacji podmiotów oddziałujących na kształtowanie się segmentów konsumentów oferty obszarów zurbanizowanych oraz wyznaczania motywacji użytecznych w planowaniu wydatków miejskich. Za realizację celu aplikacyjnego można uznać wykazywanie przydatności proponowanych ujęć teoretycznych do podejmowania decyzji dotyczących kształtowania kierunków rozwoju miast polskich, ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem możliwości diagnozowania i oceny ekonomicznego kontekstu funkcjonowania miast w obszarze zagadnień konsumpcyjnych, które wpisane są w wyzwania ponowoczesnego świata."

Ein großer Teil der europäischen Bevölkerung lebt in Städten. Diese sind einem ständigen Anpassungsdruck an gesellschaftliche und ökonomische Prozesse ausgesetzt.
Gegenwärtig durchleben viele europäische Städte einen tief greifenden demographischen, ökonomischen und soziokulturellen Freiraum- bzw. Grünflächenentwicklung auswirkt.

This text examines the history of the skyscraper as a investment instrument and its current form, the typology of the pencil tower and investigates  - within the contemporary capitalist notion of architecture as an asset - possible alternative and novel building programs and typologies that can meaningfully contribute to the city's urban fabric, its ecology and its societal values and showcases design research projects from the 2015 MSD-AAD program at UPenn, putting them in a broader societal context.

This paper develops a vintage model of residential housing for an open city, where the utility level of residents is given by an exogenous function of time. Producers behave myopically in that they believe the future. price per unit of housing services will equal the current price. Demolition occurs when the expected present value of profits from continuing to operate an existing structure equals the expected present value of profits from redevelopment. The model is analyxed under the assumption of Cobb-Douglas utility and production functions and constant rates of growth for income, commuting cost, the utility level, and the prices of non-land capital and agricultural land. Computer simulation provides a concrete example of a city which grows according to the model. Copyright0 19KIbyAcademicI%w,Inc. Au ligbt.5 of repmduction in my form -.

The aim of this paper is to bring together spatial and racial discrimination in an urban framework. While racial discrimination is against black workers, spatial discrimination (or redlining) is against residents living in the city-center. When the relative access cost for black workers to employment centers is su¢ciently large, a city is segregated by race. When the relative access cost is su¢ciently small, a city is segregated by employment status. By examining the interaction between land and labor markets, this paper …nds that both race and space are responsible for the high unemployment rate among blacks.

Can the city as ecosystem be more than a mere analogy? Can we find a fruitful overlap between the natural and built environment? Taking his cue from Christopher Alexander's Pattern Language and one of Jane Jacob's most neglected texts, Jan Rydén, curator at Färgfabriken, sees the bottom-up self-building city as a way to create a more adaptive and sustainable city. Fixing Stockholm's malfunctioning housing market might be combined with addressing a few other challenges along the way: climate, segregation, traffic, and lack of innovation.

This thesis aims at the identification and the estimation of the sector-specific net competition/agglomeration (or localization) effect and the general shopping externality (or urbanization) effect. The former arises when a shop is located close to similar shops while the latter arises when a shop is located close to any type of shops. The overall goal is to find which effect from the localization effect dominates and to integrate the urbanization effect in a spatial competition framework in line with a specification that takes into account the heterogeneity and the particular characteristics of the retail industry. The empirical findings show that the localization effect is positive and highly sector-specific while urbanization effect is not significant for a marginal retailer in the Netherlands. Spatial competition VS spatial agglomeration Ilias-Nikiforos Pasidis 2 Acknowledgements.

Lectures on Urban Economics offers a rigorous but nontechnical treatment of major topics in urban economics. To make the book accessible to a broad range of readers, the analysis is diagrammatic rather than mathematical. Although nontechnical, the book relies on rigorous economic reasoning. In contrast to the cursory theoretical development often found in other textbooks, Lectures on Urban Economics offers thorough and exhaustive treatments of models relevant to each topic, with the goal of revealing the logic of economic reasoning while also teaching urban economics.

We treat parking as a common property resource and examine the benefits of pricing it. Without pricing, parking close to the destination will be excessive, and will fall off more rapidly than is socially optimal. The optimal pattern is attained under private ownership if each parking owner prices in a monopolistically competitive manner. When cruising for parking congests both parkers and through traffic, the benefits from pricing are substantially reduced.

The aim of this study is to elaborate a synthetic document for the assessment of groundwater vulnerability to pollution in the Hajeb-Jelma aquifer. The specific object is to incorporate the Geographical Information System (GIS) to generate groundwater vulnerability and risk maps with DRASTIC model. Indeed, GIS could help to make the results of a complicated model more clear through visual representation, providing an applicable tool for decision makers. The vulnerability map of Hajeb-Jelma watershed shows three classes: moderate, high and very high depending on the intrinsic properties. The risk map shows a very high risk dependant on hydrogeological characteristics, land use and human impacts in major part of the Hajeb-Jelma region. These maps could serve as a scientific basis for sustainable land use planning and groundwater management in the Hajeb-Jelma region.

The appropriate functional form for a hedonic price equation cannot in general be specified on theoretical grounds. In this paper, a statistical procedure for the choice of functional form is proposed. A highly general functional form is specified that yields all other functional forms of interest as special cases. Likelihood ratio tests are used to test the appropriateness of alternative forms. The procedure is illustrated using cross section microdata for housing. For the case considered, the functional forms most commonly used in previous studies are strongly rejected.

This article examines five common misunderstandings about case-study research: (a) theoretical knowledge is more valuable than practical knowledge; (b) one cannot generalize from a single case, therefore, the single-case study cannot contribute to scientific development; (c) the case study is most useful for generating hypotheses, whereas other methods are more suitable for hypotheses testing and theory building; (d) the case study contains a bias toward verification; and (e) it is often difficult to summarize specific case studies. This article explains and corrects these misunderstandings one by one and concludes with the Kuhnian insight that a scientific discipline without a large number of thoroughly executed case studies is a discipline without systematic production of exemplars, and a discipline without exemplars is an ineffective one. Social science may be strengthened by the execution of a greater number of good case studies.

This paper examines the benefits from and consequences of face-to-face contact (F2F). Benefits are derived from the efficiency of F2F as a mode of communication: from its use to overcome incentive problems in working partnerships: and from its role in socializing individuals in professional networks. The consequences are that agglomeration forces remain strong, even in world where the spatial costs of information transmission are low.

Japanese housing price determination mechanisms are analyzed using the housing demand index of demographic factors proposed by Mankiw and Weil (Regional Science and Urban Economics, 1989, 19, 235-258). The distinctive feature of this paper is that we distinguish between the long-run and short-run effects using the notion of cointegration and an error correction model. We find a high price elasticity for long-run housing supply contrary to the U.S. results and conclude that the effect of the demographics on housing prices in Japan appears through a short-run adjustment process.

The study was on entrepreneurship development in agriculture among arable crop farmers in Imo State, Nigeria. Sixty households entrepreneurs were selected using multi-stage random sampling techniques. Well structured questionnaire was the main tool for data collection. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistical tools and 3-point likert scale rating of highly, moderately and low. Mean age was 42.11years. Majority (76.33%) were males. Greater proportions (71.67%) were married with an average household size of 5.0 persons. Farmers cultivated on an average farm size of 1.61Ha. Average annual farm income was N118,392.00 ($789.28). Reasonable proportion of the farmers identified personal intension, wanting autonomy and displacement/disruption in life as the key drive to entrepreneurship development in the area. Entrepreneurship enterprises have been invaluable to farmers in the area. However, farmers complained of poor access to entrepreneurship information, inadequate start-up capital and long distance between farms and market in the area. Despite this shortcomings farmers perceived their extent of entrepreneurship drive and participation as been high (X=4.50). It was therefore recommended that effective and adequate entrepreneurship policies and programmes should be developed for farmers while urgently addressing the negative factors that hinder its growth and development in the area. Fostering entrepreneurship education at all levels to ensure capacity building for diverse enterprises in agriculture was also advocated. Ultimately, government at all levels and private's sector support fund is necessary to enhance entrepreneurship spirit and development among farmers in the area and beyond.