All roads lead to Rome ... and to sprawl? Evidence from European cities

I investigate the effect of highways on residential sprawl in European cities between 1990 and 2012. I find that a 10% increase in the stock of highways (km) causes a 0.4% growth in the residential land area, a 1.7% growth in the number of residential lots, and a 0.7% growth in the percentage of undeveloped land surrounding residential land over 20 years. At the regional level, only the effect on residential area is smaller in Northwestern cities than in Mediterranean and Eastern LUZs. I also explore the impact on population growth a la Duranton and Turner (2012) and find significant positive effects. Jointly, land and population results show a negative effect of highways on the intensity of use of land. As a whole, these results confirm that highways expand cities with more fragmented residential developments surrounded by undeveloped land and reducing the overall city density

Urban spatial structure, suburbanization and transportation in Barcelona

I investigate the effect of transportation improvements on changes in population location patterns in Barcelona between 1991 and 2006. At a much finer geographical scale, I verify and extend the finding of Baum-Snow (2007a) that transportation cause suburbanization: highway and railroad improvements foster population growth in suburban areas, whereas the transit system also affects the location of population inside the CBD. To estimate the causal relationship between the growth of population (density) and transportation improvements, I rely on an instrumental variables estimation which uses distances to the nearest Roman road, the nearest 19th century main road, and the nearest 19th century railroad network as instruments for the 2001-1991 changes in distance to the nearest highway ramp and the distance to the nearest railroad station

The Role of Historic Amenities in Shaping Cities

The existence of amenities matters to understanding people’s residential choices. Our theoretical model extends the standard urban model by introducing exogenous amenities to explain population allocation within cities. To estimate the model predictions, we focus on historic amenities using detailed geolocated data for 579 European cities. We analyze how the shape of city centers endowed or not endowed with these amenities is affected. We measure històric amenities with the location of buildings from the Roman, Medieval, and Renaissance-Baroque periods. Our results show that cities with historic buildings in their centers have steeper population density gradients, are more compact and centralized, and have been less affected by the suburbanization processes caused by transportation improvements. Heterogeneity analyses show that the quantity and the quality of historic buildings also matter. Several robustness checks controlling for natural and modern amenities and testing for the spatial scope of these amenities verify our main results

Real Estate Prices and Land Use Regulations: Evidence from the law of heights in Bogotá

Between 2015 and 2017, the Law of Heights (Policy-562) regulated areas of urban renewal in specific locations of Bogotá (Colombia). Using a novel dataset based on detailed information at the block level between 2008 and 2017, we study whether this policy affected real estate prices. Our empirical strategy compares the price per square meter before and after Policy-562 in treated blocks and in control blocks with similar pre-treatment traits. Results show that prices increased more in treated blocks than in the rest of the city. We also provide evidence that results are heterogeneous from a temporal, land use and strata point of view

Income segregation in monocentric and polycentric cities: Does urban form really matter?

We estimate the effect of urban spatial structure on income segregation in Brazilian cities between 2000 and 2010. Our results show that, first, local density conditions increase income segregation: the effect is higher in monocentric cities and smaller in polycentric ones. Second, the degree of monocentricity-polycentricity also affects segregation: while a higher concentration of jobs in and around the CBD decreases segregation in monocentric cities, a higher employment concentration in and around subcenters located far from the CBD decreases segregation in polycentric cities. Third, results are heterogeneous according to city size: local density does not increase segregation in small (monocentric) cities, it increases segregation in medium size cities, and it decreases segregation in large (polycentric) cities. Finally, results also differ between income groups: while local density conditions increase the segregation of the poor, a more polycentric configuration reduces the segregation of the rich

Express delivery to the suburbs. The effects of transportation in Europe’s heterogeneous cities

This paper provides evidence for the causal effect of the highway and railway infrastructure on the suburbanization of population in European cities. We adopt different measures of transportation infrastructure and estimate their joint effects on suburbanization using a two-step panel approach. Our main results suggest that an additional highway ray displaced approximately 4% of the central city population in European cities over a 10-year period, whereas we find no significant effect for the railways on average. However, railways did cause suburbanization those located in Central-North Europe. When employing the full time span covered by our data and accounting for the diversity of European cities, we find a smaller effect of highways on suburbanization during more recent decades and for “cities with history”. Factors such as historical urban amenities, traffic congestion, urban policies etc. appear to provide reasonable explanations for these differences. The findings of this paper are novel and provide valuable insights for European regional and transport policies

Next train to the polycentric city: The effect of railroads on subcenter formation

Recent evidence reveals that transportation's improvements within metropolitan areas have a clear effect on population and job decentralization processes. Yet, very little has been said on how these improvements affect the spatial organization of the economic activity in the suburbs. This paper analyses the effects of transportation's changes on employment subcenters formation. Using data from metropolitan Paris between 1968 and 2010, we first show that the spatial pattern of job decentralization is reinforcing the polycentric nature of Paris: the number of subcenters grew from 21 in 1968 to 35 in 2010 and the employment growth was very intense within them. Second, our main contribution is to show that the new rail transit clearly affects the emergence of subcenters: not only does the presence of a rail station increase the probability of a suburban municipality of becoming (part of) a subcenter by 5 to 10%, but a 10% increase in municipality proximity to a suburban station is found to increase its chance to be part of a subcenter by 3 to 5%

Congestion in Highways when tolls and railroads matter: Evidence from European cities.

Using data from the 545 largest European cities, we studywhether the expansion of their highway capacity provides a solutionto the problem of traffic congestion. Our results confirm that in thelong run, and in line with the ’fundamental law of highway congestion’,the expansion in cities of lane kilometers causes an increase invehicle traffic that does not solve urban congestion. We disentanglethe increase in traffic due to the increases in coverage and in capacity.We further introduce road pricing andpublic transit policies in orderto test whether they moderate congestion. Our findings confirm thatthe induced demand is considerably smaller in cities with road pricingschemes, and that congestion decreases with the expansion of publictransportation

How does transportation shape intrametropolitan growth? An answer from the regional express rail [WP]

This paper analyzes the influence of transportation infrastructure, and in particular of the Regional Express Rail (RER), on employment and population growth in the Paris metropolitan area between 1968 and 2010. In order to make proper causal inference, we rely on historical instruments and control for all other transportation modes that could be complement or substitute to the RER. A dynamic analysis accounting for spatial heterogeneity reveals that for municipalities located less than 13 kilometers from an RER station, each kilometer closer to the station increases employment and population growth by 12% and 8% respectively. Regarding the time pattern of these effects, we find no impact of the RER expansion on employment growth during the first part of the period, while the effect on population growth appears earlier but declines over time

Suburbanization and highways: when the Romans, the Bourbons and the first cars still shape Spanish cities

We estimate the effects of highways on the suburbanization of Spanish cities. First, we extend previous findings for the US and China by providing evidence for Europe: each additional highway ray built between 1991 and 2006 produced a 5 per cent decline in central city population between 1991 and 2011. Second, our main contribution is at the intrametropolitan level. We find that highway improvements influence the spatial pattern of suburbanization: suburban municipalities that were given improved access to the highway system between 1991 and 2006 grew 4.6% faster. The effect was most marked in suburbs located at 5–11 km from the central city (7.1%), and concentrated near the highways: population spreaded out along the (new) highway segments (4.7%) and ramps (2.7%). To estimate the causal relationship between population growth and highway improvements, we rely on an IV estimation. We use Spain’s historical road networks – Roman roads, 1760 main post roads, and 19th century main roads – to construct our candidates for use as instrument