Suburbanization and transportation in the monocentric model

This paper presents a version of the monocentric city model that incorporates heterogeneous commuting speeds by introducing radial commuting highways. This model implies that metropolitan area population spreads out along new highways, which are positively valued by residents. Simulations of conservative specifications of the model imply that each additional highway ray causes about a 10 percent decline in central city population. Given observed central population declines and urban highway construction between 1950 and 1990, this model implies that highways can account for an important part of urban population decentralization.     

Suburbanization and highways in Spain when the Romans and the Bourbons still shape its cities

We estimate the effects of highways on the suburbanization of Spanish cities. Based on Spain’s historical roads – the almost 2000 years old Roman roads and the 1760 Bourbon roads –, we rely on an instrumental variables (IV) strategy because of the endogeneity of highway provision. Our results show that, first, each highway emanating from central cities caused an 8–9% decline in central city population between 1960 and 2011. Second, each highway ray fostered a 20% population growth in the suburbs, in particular in suburban municipalities where ramps were located. Finally, we confirm the increasing role of highways on shaping urban form: each additional kilometer closer to the nearest highway ramp increased municipal density growth by an 8%.     

Building ages and urban growth

This paper presents an empirical test of a hypothesis derived from a theoretical urban growth model developed by Brueckner and von Rabenau (1981). The model portrays a monocentric city with radial commuting where housing developers choose among a number of infinite-horizon land-use strategies with the knowledge that the urban population will change discontinuously at a future date τ. The model suggests that a large population increase will raise housing prices sufficiently to make it worthwhile for developers to replace old centrally-located structures at τ. When population increases moderately or declines, replacement will not be optimal and original structures will be left standing forever. Regression results relating 1970 central-city building ages to prior urbanized area population growth confirm the existence of the inverse relationship between building ages and prior growth predicted by the theory.     

Urban growth and subcenter formation: A trolley ride from the Staples Center to Disneyland and the Rose Bowl

The long-term trends of urbanization suggest: not only have more cities formed, but the leading metropolises have grown larger, with a number of peripheral subcenters developing over time. Conventional models of urban growth are limited, in that commuting cost and congestion eventually result in decreasing returns in a monocentric city as population becomes very large. We construct a general-equilibrium model with dynamic interactions between spatial agglomeration and urban development, driven by location-dependent knowledge spillovers. Our contribution allows endogenous development of subcenters to capture benefits from knowledge spillovers and offset diminishing returns from urban congestion, thus permitting more sustained city growth.     

北京地区交通对城市空间扩展的影响研究

交通是城市空间扩展的主要内在适应性因素,并直接牵引城市空间扩展方向.论文选择北京市最具代表性的3个区域(中心城、通州区和密云区),采用多变量逻辑回归模型研究交通对城市空间扩展的影响,发现不同交通道路对北京城市空间形态变化影响力不同,中心城主要是受环路、高速、地铁和铁路的影响,而郊区则主要受国道和省道的影响.     

THE ECONOMICS OF COMMUTING AND THE URBAN LABOUR MARKET

ABSTRACT. The spatial distribution of households and firms, or urban spatial structure, is a core element of the study of urban economics and the crucial determinant of commuting patterns. This paper examines developments in the analysis of urban spatial structure and commuting are related to the urban labour market—that is the analysis of labour supply and labour demand in a spatial context. These developments have been overlooked in the traditional approach to urban structure and commuting where most attention has been devoted to the markets for land and housing rather than the market for labour. Yet a little reflection suggests that the labour market might have a great deal to do with the location decisions of households and firms, and hence with commuting patterns. We argue that much criticism of the economic analysis of urban structure and commuting can be addressed by explicit incorporation of the labour market into the conventional model of urban location. This criticism includes findings that the theory cannot explain the tendency for richer households to live farther from the central business district and commute farther to work (Wheaton, 1977) and findings of substantial unexplained or 'wasteful' commuting according to conventional theory (Hamilton, 1982). The paper begins by outlining the basic model of residential location and commuting (Section 2). We then consider extensions that involve the introduction of labour supply decisions and which determine the value of commuting time (Section 3). More recent extensions involve the introduction of decentralized workplaces (Section 4) and, logically, the issues of job search and migration (Section 5). We conclude with a summary of the progress in incorporating labour market behaviour into the analysis of urban structure and commuting and our suggestions for further research in this area.     

德国的城市化模式

德国的城市化采用了以大城市为核心、建立互补共生的区域城市圈的模式。在城市圈内,大中小城市均衡发展,中小城市是城市体系中的主体。德国的这种城市化模式保证了低房价,减少了居民上下班通勤时间和成本,完善了中小城市的基础设施和公共服务,降低了城市居民的生活成本,保持和发展了各城市独特的城市文化,形成和发展了多样化的旅游业。     

Optimal highway design and user welfare under value pricing

This paper investigates the optimal design of highways operated under a form of congestion pricing called value pricing. Value pricing involves dividing a highway into free and priced lanes so that in equilibrium the highway effectively operates at two levels of service, with those users placing a higher value on travel time savings selecting the faster, priced route. A tractable analytical framework is developed which allows analysis of equilibrium and welfare on value priced highways when users vary in their value of time. The model is used to characterize optimal toll and capacity policies, as well as investigate the fiscal implications of value pricing. The analysis concludes with results on how welfare changes induced by value pricing are distributed over the population of users when the government finances any funding shortfall through a non-discriminatory taxing mechanism. A realistic numeric example is used to illustrate how the model can be applied to evaluation of actual and proposed value pricing implementations.     

交通均衡供给策略与城市间协调发展

土地利用和交通系统的相关研究目前主要集中于城市内部空间这种孤立和中观的空间尺度.在区域层面,城市间与城际交通的协调发展未引起过多关注,这一问题在以中心城市为核心的城镇体系结构中表现更为明显.目前我国城际交通主要特征是公路交通方式为主,同时公路交通与城市发展也存在相当大的冲突.促进区域和城际交通系统的协调发展,关键在于以客运交通系统优先的城际多模式综合交通系统的构建,而不只是单一的公路网,在此基础上进一步促进城际客运交通和货运交通的有机分离,鼓励城际客运交通与区域内部各城市土地利用的功能整合,同时尽量减少货运交通对城市的干扰.     

Spatial mismatch: An equilibrium analysis

The spatial mismatch hypothesis, first stated by Kain (1968) argues that job decentralization in US cities has contributed to low incomes and high unemployment rates for black Americans. Decentralization relocates job sites to white suburban communities far from the CBD, and housing segregation prevents blacks from relocating their residences near the new workplaces. The purpose of the paper is to analyze an urban equilibrium with spatial mismatch. Despite the existence of a suburban employment center, blacks in the model are forced to live in the central zone they occupied in the original monocentric city, commuting across the white residential area to access suburban jobs. This ‘mismatch’ equilibrium is contrasted with an unrestricted equilibrium where blacks are free to locate wherever they choose.     

Endogenous job destruction and job matching in cities

We propose a spatial search-matching model where both job creation and job destruction are endogenous. Workers are ex ante identical but not ex post since their jobs can be hit by a technological shock which decreases their productivity. They reside in a city, and commuting to the job center involves both pecuniary and time costs. As a result, workers with high wages are willing to live closer to jobs to save on time commuting costs. We show that, in equilibrium, there is a one-to-one correspondence between the productivity space and the urban location space. Workers with high productivities and wages reside close to jobs, have low per distance commuting costs and pay high land rents. We also show that higher per distance commuting costs and higher unemployment benefits lead to more job destruction.     

Alternative congestion pricing schedules

It is important that alternative congestion pricing schedules are compared with respect to a broad spectrum of their effects. This paper uses an equilibrium simulation model of peak-period commuting along an urban highway to compare quantitatively both positive and normative effects of six congestion pricing schedules. Three of these schedules have been investigated qualitatively in the literature; the others are new. The results indicate that flat tolls are favored over smoothly varying tolls for revenue generation or increase in vehicle occupancy, but are disfavored for efficiency maximization, increase in consumer surplus, or reduction in congestion delays.     

Determinants of urban population density functions: a procedure for efficient estimates

A model of urban population density functions is proposed that uses all available data on densities in urban areas. "This model postulates that population density at each census tract in each city is determined by city size, transportation costs, land supply, income and age of city." The model is applied to data on cities in Israel.     

Transport tax reform, commuting, and endogenous values of time

We consider a model of urban transport with two trip purposes, commuting (assumed perfectly complementary to labour supply) and noncommuting, to analyse the effects of transport tax reform on the value of time and marginal external congestion costs. Higher commuting taxes plausibly reduce time values, but higher noncommuting transport prices will typically raise the value of time. The intuition for this latter finding is that the reduction in congestion that follows from the tax increase itself raises net wages per hour of work (inclusive of commuting time). Empirical illustrations with Belgian data show a potentially large effect of transport tax reform on time values. In quite a few of the tax reforms studied traffic levels are reduced, but the increase in time values implies that marginal external congestion costs actually increase.     

Political economy of commuting subsidies

We study the political economy of commuting subsidies in a model of a monocentric city with two income classes. Depending on housing demand and transport costs, either the rich or the poor live in the central city and the other group in the suburbs. Commuting subsidies increase the net income of those with long commutes or high transport costs. They also affect land rents and therefore the income of landowners. The paper studies how the locational pattern of the two income classes and the incidence of landownership affects the support for commuting subsidies.     

The periurban city: why to live between the suburbs and the countryside

The last 30 years have witnessed the emergence of a new pattern of urban development in France, called the periurban belt. It is defined as a belt outside the city occupied both by households and farmers. We develop a residential model in which households commuting to an employment center may choose to live with farmers in this mixed belt because they value the rural amenities created by farming activities. Both types of agents compete on the land market and the equilibrium conditions allow us to obtain an analytical solution and to provide some insights about the robustness of the periurban form against decreases in commuting costs. Finally, the model is calibrated on French data.     

辽宁中部城市群高等级公路网络发育程度评价

高等级公路是城市群城际联系的快速通道,对城市群一体化发展起着十分重要的作用。本文以22个入网城市的最短路径矩阵为基础,选取通达指数、伸展指数、趋中指数等指标,对辽中城市群高等级公路网络的发育程度进行评价。结果显示,辽中城市群高等级公路网络的发育程度在空间格局上呈现明显的"核心-外围"模式,通达指数最高的城市集中在中部地区(沈阳周围),较低的城市分布在外围地区;趋中指数排序与通达指数排序相吻合;作为城市群重要门户城市———营口的通达性丞待提高,城市群南北向高等级公路网络建设也需要进一步加强。     

New highways as economic development tools: An evaluation using quasi-experimental matching methods

Stimulating economic growth and development in rural and economically lagging regions is the goal of several federal and state highway programs. This paper examines the effectiveness of highway investment as an economic development tool. A quasi-experimental matching method is used to examine the effects of interstate highways on counties which obtained links during the period 1963–1975 or are in close proximity to these newly linked counties. The results show that the beneficiaries of the interstate links in terms of economic growth are interstate counties in close proximity to large cities or having some degree of prior urbanization, such as a city with more than 25,000 residents. Rural interstate and off-interstate counties exhibit few positive effects.     

Commuting distances in a household location choice model with amenities

Observed commuting distances generally exceed those predicted by standard models of household location choice. This paper develops a model with locational amenities and two job centers. It is shown that differences in household preferences for amenities can lead to various types of residential location patterns, some of which result in higher average commuting distances in the city.