From John Lindsay to Rudy Giuliani: the decline of the local safety net?

This paper was presented at the conference "Unequal incomes, unequal outcomes? Economic inequality and measures of well-being" as part of session 4, "Economic inequality and local public services." The conference was held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on May 7, 1999. The authors contend that the future scope of city-based redistributive policies is limited. An important way in which policymakers work to reduce inequality is by redistributing income from the wealthy to the poor, channeling income tax revenue into spending on welfare and other services. The authors suggest, however, that New York City and other cities have had to scale back their redistributive policies. New York City's evolution from a manufacturing city to a service city accounts for more than one-third of the reduction in redistribution, because businesses in the service sector are more mobile and are therefore harder to tax than those in manufacturing. In addition, the authors document a more general decline in the relationship between land area and redistribution. In 1970, cities with greater land area tended to redistribute more income, but by 1990, this connection was no longer evident. The authors attribute this change to an erosion in the market power of large cities and observe that increased mobility and the existence of edge cities have contributed to a decline in the monopoly power once enjoyed by large cities.Public policy ; Public welfare ; Income distribution ; Income

Decentralized Employment and the Transformation of the American City

This paper examines the decentralization of employment using zip code data on employment by industry. Most American cities are decentralized--on average less than 16 percent of employment in metropolitan areas is within a three mile radius of the city center. In decentralized cities, the classic stylized facts of urban economics (i. e. prices fall with distance to the city center, commute time rise with distance and poverty falls with distance)no longer hold. Decentralization is most common in manufacturing and least common in services. The human capital level of an industry predicts its centralization, but the dominant factor explaining decentralization is the residential preferences of workers. Political borders also impact employment density which suggests that local government policies significantly influence the location of industry.

Sprawl and Urban Growth

Cities can be thought of as the absence of physical space between people and firms. As such, they exist to eliminate transportation costs for goods, people and ideas and transportation technologies dictate urban form. In the 21st century, the dominant form of city living is based on the automobile and this form is sometimes called sprawl. In this essay, we document that sprawl is ubiquitous and that it is continuing to expand. Using a variety of evidence, we argue that sprawl is not the result of explicit government policies or bad urban planning, but rather the inexorable product of car-based living. Sprawl has been associated with significant improvements in quality of living, and the environmental impacts of sprawl have been offset by technological change. Finally, we suggest that the primary social problem associated with sprawl is the fact that some people are left behind because they do not earn enough to afford the cars that this form of living requires.

Sprawl and Urban Growth

Cities can be thought of as the absence of physical space between people and firms. As such, they exist to eliminate transportation costs for goods, people and ideas and transportation technologies dictate urban form. In the 21st century, the dominant form of city living is based on the automobile and this form is sometimes called sprawl. In this essay, we document that sprawl is ubiquitous and that it is continuing to expand. Using a variety of evidence, we argue that sprawl is not the result of explicit government policies or bad urban planning, but rather the inexorable product of car-based living. Sprawl has been associated with significant improvements in quality of living, and the environmental impacts of sprawl have been offset by technological change. Finally, we suggest that the primary social problem associated with sprawl is the fact that some people are left behind because they do not earn enough to afford the cars that this form of living requires.

Why Do The Poor Live In Cities? The Role of Public Transportation

More than 19 percent of people in American central cities are poor. In suburbs, just 7.5 percent of people live in poverty. The income elasticity of demand for land is too low for urban poverty to come from wealthy individuals' wanting to live where land is cheap (the traditional explanation of urban poverty). A significant income elasticity for land exists only because the rich eschew apartment living, and that elasticity is still too low to explain the poor's urbanization. The urbanization of poverty comes mainly from better access to public transportation in central cities.Economic

Decentralized Employment and the Transformation of the American City

This paper examines the decentralization of employment using zip code data on employment by industry. Most American cities are decentralized on average less than 16 percent of employment in metropolitan areas is within a three mile radius of the city center. In decentralized cities, the classic stylized facts of urban economics (i.e. prices fall with distance to the city center, commute times rise with distance and poverty falls with distance) no longer hold. Decentralization is most common in manufacturing and least common in services. The human capital level of an industry predicts its centralization, but the dominant factor explaining decentralization is the residential preferences of workers. Political borders also impact employment density which suggests that local government policies significantly influence the location of industry.

The Greenness of Cities: Carbon Dioxide Emissions and Urban Development

Carbon dioxide emissions may create significant social harm because of global warming, yet American urban development tends to be in low density areas with very hot summers. In this paper, we attempt to quantify the carbon dioxide emissions associated with new construction in different locations across the country. We look at emissions from driving, public transit, home heating, and household electricity usage. We find that the lowest emissions areas are generally in California and that the highest emissions areas are in Texas and Oklahoma. There is a strong negative association between emissions and land use regulations. By restricting new development, the cleanest areas of the country would seem to be pushing new development towards places with higher emissions. Cities generally have significantly lower emissions than suburban areas, and the city-suburb gap is particularly large in older areas, like New York.

The Greenness of China: Household Carbon Dioxide Emissions and Urban Development

China urbanization is associated with both increases in per-capita income and greenhouse gas emissions. This paper uses micro data to rank 74 major Chinese cities with respect to their household carbon footprint. We find that the “greenest” cities based on this criterion are Huaian and Suqian while the “dirtiest” cities are Daqing and Mudanjiang. Even in the dirtiest city (Daqing), a standardized household produces only one-fifth of that in America’s greenest city (San Diego). We find that the average January temperature is strongly negatively correlated with a city’s household carbon footprint, which suggests that current regional economic development policies that bolster the growth of China’s northeastern cities are likely to increase emissions. We use our city specific income elasticity estimates to predict the growth of carbon emissions in China’s cities.

Wage Flexibility and Employment Fluctuations: Evidence from the Housing Sector

Many economists suspect that downward nominal wage rigidities in ongoing labour contracts are an important source of employment fluctuations over the business cycle, but there is little direct empirical evidence on this conjecture. This paper compares three occupations in the housing sector with very different wage setting institutions: real estate agents, architects and construction workers. I study the wage and employment responses of these occupations to the housing cycle, a proxy for labour demand shocks to the industry. The employment of real estate agents, whose pay is far more flexible than the other occupations, indeed reacts less to the cycle than employment in the other occupations, although specific estimates are noisy. I show that the aggregate implications of the estimates depend also on the aggregate labour demand elasticity, which captures how easily laid off workers can find employment in alternative sectors