The linked nature of long-term patterns of urban deconcentration and regional change (from rustbelt to sunbelt in the U.S., but with similar phenomena increasingly world-wide) is analyzed in a framework that emphasizes heterogeneous human preferences. The focus is on the important interactions that exist between local and regional amenities, whether exogenous or endogenous. The central thesis is that persistent exogenous amenity variation among regions provides an underlying pattern of regional growth and decline. However, inappropriate provision of local public goods in central cities is seen to lead both to non-optimally large levels of suburbanization and to rates of regional change that are also non-optimally large.
KeywordsSpatial Distribution of Economic ActivitySuburbanizationRegional Growth and DeclineAmenitiesLocal Public Goods
M. J. Greenwood, “Research on internal migration in the United States: A survey,” Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. 13, No. 2, 1975, pp. 397-433.
E. L. Glaeser and M. E. Kahn, “Sprawl and Urban Growth,” Working Paper 9733, 2003. http://www.nber.org/papers/w9733
E. L. Glaeser and J. E. Kohlhase, “Cities, Regions and the Decline of Transport Costs,” Papers in Regional Science, Vol. 83, No. 1, pp. 197-228, 2003.
E. L. Glaeser and J. Gyourko, “Urban Decline and Durable Housing,” Working Paper 8598, 2001. http://www.nber.org/papers/w8598
L. A. Sjaastad, “The Costs and Returns of Human Migration,” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 70, No. 5, 1962, pp. 80-93. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/258726
P. E. Graves and P. D. Linneman, “Household Migration: Theoretical and Empirical Results,” Journal of Urban Economics, Vol. 6, No. 3, 1979, pp. 383-404. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0094-1190(79)90038-X
P. D. Linneman and P. E. Graves, “Migration and Job Change: A Multinomial Logit Approach,” Journal of Urban Economics, Vol. 14, No. 3, 1983, pp. 263-279. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0094-1190(83)90009-8
P. R. Mueser and P. E. Graves, “Examining the Role of Economic Opportunity and Amenities in Explaining Population Redistribution,” Journal of Urban Economics, Vol. 37, No. 2, 1995, pp. 176-200. http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/juec.1995.1010
R. Muth, “Migration: Chicken or egg?” Southern Economic Journal, Vol. 37, No. 3, 1971, pp. 295-306. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1056181
M. J. Greenwood and G. L. Hunt, “Migration and Interregional Employment Redistribution in the United States,” American Economic Review, Vol. 74, No. 5, 1984, pp. 957- 969.
M. J. Greenwood and G. L. Hunt, “Jobs Versus Amenities in the Analysis of Metropolitan Migration,” Journal of Urban Economics, Vol. 25, No. 1, 1989, pp. 1-16. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0094-1190(89)90040-5
A. W. Evans, “The Assumption of Equilibrium in The Analysis of Migration and Interregional Differences: A Review of Some Recent Research,” Journal of Regional Science, Vol. 30, No. 4, 1990, pp. 541-546. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9787.1990.tb00119.x
P. E. Graves and P. R. Mueser, “The Role of Equilibrium and Disequilibrium in Modeling Regional Growth and Decline: A Critical Reassessment,” Journal of Regional Science, Vol. 33, No. 1, 1993, pp. 69-84. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9787.1993.tb00211.x
B. Cushing, “A Note on Specification of Climate Variables in Models of Population Migration,” Journal of Regional Science, Vol. 27, No. 4, 1987, pp. 641-649. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9787.1987.tb01186.x
D. B. Diamond and G. S. Tolley, “The Economics of Urban Amenities,” Academic Press, New York, 1982.
P. E. Graves, “A Reexamination of Migration, Economic Opportunity, and the Quality of Life,” Journal of Regional Science, Vol. 16, No. 1, 1976, pp. 107-112. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9787.1976.tb00954.x
P. E. Graves, “A Life-Cycle Empirical Analysis of Migration and Climate, by Race,” Journal of Urban Economics, Vol. 6, No. 2, 1979, pp. 135-147. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0094-1190(79)90001-9
P. E. Graves, “Migration and climate,” Journal of Regional Science, Vol. 20, No. 2, 1980, pp. 227-237. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9787.1980.tb00641.x
P. E. Graves, “Migration with a Composite Amenity: The Role of Rents,” Journal of Regional Science, Vol. 23, No. 4, 1983, pp. 541-546. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9787.1983.tb01009.x
G. S. Tolley, “The Welfare Economics of City Bigness,” Journal of Urban Economics, Vol. 1, No. 3, 1974, pp. 324- 345. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0094-1190(74)90011-4
R. J. Cebula and R. K. Vedder, “A Note on Migration, Economic Opportunity, and the Quality of Life,” Journal of Regional Science, Vol. 13, No. 2, 1973, pp. 205-210. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9787.1973.tb00395.x
D. R. Haurin, “The Regional Distribution of Population, Migration and Climate,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 95, 1980, pp. 293-308. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1885501
S. Rosen, “Wage-Based Indexes of Urban Quality of Life,” In: P. Mieszkowski and M. Straszheim, Eds., Current Issues in Urban Economics, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1979, pp. 74-104.
J. Roback, “Wages, Rents, and the Quality of Life,” Jour- nal of Political Economy, Vol. 90, No. 6, 1982, pp. 1257- 1278. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/261120
J. Roback, “Wages, Rents, and Amenities: Differences among Workers and Regions,” Economic Inquiry, Vol. 26, No. 1, 1988, pp. 23-41. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1465-7295.1988.tb01667.x
G. C. Blomquist, M. C. Berger and J. P. Hoehn, “New Estimates of the Quality of Life in Urban Areas,” American Economic Review, Vol. 78, No. 1, 1988, pp. 89-107.
E. G. Ravenstein, “The laws of migration,” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Parts 1 and 2, Vol. 48 and Vol. 52, 1885 and 1889, pp. 167-227 and pp. 241-301, Respectively.
H. S. Shryock Jr., “The Efficiency of Internal Migration in the United States,” Proceedings of the International Population Conference, Vienna, 1959, pp. 1-10.
P. E. Graves and D. M. Waldman, “Multimarket Amenity Compensation and the Behavior of the Elderly,” American Economic Review, Vol. 81, No. 5, 1991, pp. 1374-1381.
M. J. Greenwood, J. A. Chalmers and P. E. Graves, “Regional Location Patterns in the United States: Recent Changes And Future Prospects,” In: J. van Dijk, H. Folmer, H. W. Herzog Jr. and A. M. Schlottmann, Eds., Migration and Labor Market Adjustment, Berlin, Kluwer Academic Publishers Group, 1989, pp. 3-45.
P. E. Graves and J. Regulska, “Amenities and Migration over the Life-Cycle,” In: D. B. Diamond and G. S. Tolley, Eds., The Economics of Urban Amenities, Academic Press, New York, 1982, pp. 210-221.
K. Jackson, “Crabgrass Frontier. The Suburbanization of the United States,” Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1985.
E. S. Mills and L. S. Lubuele, “Inner Cities,” Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. 35, 1997, pp. 727-756.
J. K. Brueckner, J.-F. Thisse and Y. Zenou, “Why Is Central Paris Rich and Downtown Detroit Poor? An Amenity-Based Theory,” European Economic Review, Vol. 43, No. 1, 1999, pp. 91-107. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0014-2921(98)00019-1
P. E. Graves, “Nonoptimal Levels of Suburbanization,” En- vironment and Planning A, Vol. 35, No. 2, 2003, pp. 191- 198. http://dx.doi.org/10.1068/a3577
W. C. Wheaton, “On the Optimal Distribution of Income among Cities,” Journal of Urban Economics, Vol. 3, No. 1, 1976, pp. 31-44. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0094-1190(76)90056-5
M. Fujita, “Urban Economic Theory,” Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1989. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511625862
P. E. Graves, “A Note on the Valuation of Collective Goods: Overlooked Input Market Free Riding for Non Individually Incrementable Goods,” The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy, Vol. 9, No. 1, 2009, pp. 1-17.
N. Flores and P. E. Graves, “Optimal Public Goods Provision: Implications of Endogenizing the Labor/Leisure Choice,” Land Economics, Vol. 84, No. 4, 2008, pp. 701 707.
P. A. Samuelson, “The Pure Theory of Public Expenditures,” Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 36, No. 4, 1954, pp. 387-389. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1925895
E. H. Clarke, “Multipart Pricing of Public Goods,” Public Choice, Vol. 11, No. 1, 1971, pp. 17-37. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF01726210
T. Groves and J. O. Ledyard, “Optimal Allocations of Public Goods: A Solution to The ‘Free Rider’ Problem,” Econometrica, Vol. 45, No. 4, 1977, pp. 783-809. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1912672
P. E. Graves, “The Simple Analytics of the WTA-WTP Disparity for Public Goods,” Manuscript, 2009.
C. Tiebout, “A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures,” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 64, No. 4, 1956, pp. 416- 424.