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Transport Subsidies, System Choice, and Urban Sprawl
Abstract
This paper analyzes the effect of transport subsidies on the spatial expansion of cities, asking whether such subsidies are a source of undesirable urban sprawl. Even though the cost-reducing effect of transport subsidies is offset by a higher general tax burden (which reduces the demand for space), the analysis shows that subsidies nevertheless lead to spatial expansion of cities. If the transport system exhibits constant returns to scale, the subsidies are inefficient, making the urban expansion they entail undesirable. The paper also studies transport “system choice,” with the city portrayed as selecting its transport system from along a continuum of money cost/time cost choices. The analysis shows that subsidies inefficiently bias choice in the direction of a high money cost/low time cost option. Lastly, the paper considers system choice in a city with rich and poor groups, showing that the rich favor a system with a high money cost and low time cost, but that their choice, if implemented, leads to a city whose spatial size is smaller than optimal. Thus, rich control of system choice does not lead to urban sprawl.
... Welfare Function Objective Oron et al. (1973) Equilibrium Utility Optimal congestion tolls Robson (1976) Equilibrium Utility Optimal road land allocation in the presence of congestion Kanemoto (1977) Equilibrium Utility Optimal road land allocation in the presence of congestion Arnott (1979b) Resources Optimal city size Arnott (1979a) Resources Optimal valuation of land in the presence of congestion Kanemoto (1980) Equilibrium Utility Optimal congestion tolls Pines and Sadka (1985) Equilibrium Utility Optimal congestion tolls and lot size zoning Straszhem (1987) Equilibrium Utility Equilibrium structure of cities Papageorgiou and Pines (1999) Resources Equilibrium structure of cities Brueckner (2005) Resources Optimal transport subsidies Verhoef (2005) Equilibrium Utility Second-best congestion pricing schemes Brueckner (2007) Equilibrium Utility Urban growth boundaries in the presence of congestion Kono et al. (2012) Equilibrium Utility Optimal building size in the presence of congestion Pines and Kono (2012) Equilibrium Utility Floor area ratio regulations in the presence of congestion De Lara et al. (2013) Resources Congestion pricing schemes Fujita and Thisse (2013) Resources Equilibrium structure of cities Tikoudis et al. (2015) Equilibrium Utility Congestion pricing schemes Duranton and Puga (2015) Resources Equilibrium structure of cities Kono and Kawaguchi (2017) Equilibrium Utility Congestion pricing and land use regulations Tikoudis et al. (2018) Equilibrium Utility Congestion pricing schemes Kono et al. (2019) Equilibrium Utility Property taxes in the presence of congestion Does the market equilibrium minimize resource usage (second approach's welfare function) when all land rents are captured and redistributed in equal shares (first approach's assumption)? If the answer to these questions were affirmative, both approaches would be equivalent irrespective of the assumption regarding land ownership. ...
... an absentee landlord, with rents vanishing from the city. This approach has been used, for instance, to study policies in the presence of traffic congestion (De Lara et al., 2013), and the desirability of transit subsidies (Brueckner, 2005). ...
... Based on the previous result, Brueckner (2005) concludes that the market outcome is efficient, while Duranton and Puga (2015) states that a Rawlsian planner -seeking to maximize the equilibrium utility-would choose the market equilibrium. Note that these conclusions are not straightforward, since the result of Proposition 2 deals with minimization of resources and not maximization of equilibrium utility. ...
... 35 City size and urban sprawl. A series of studies, including LeRoy and Sonstelie (1983), Sasaki (1990), andBrueckner (2005), analyse transport subsidies, mode selection in public investments, mode choice in daily commuting, and their impact on city size and the intensity of urban sprawl. Brueckner (2005) showed that subsidies have two main effects on city size. ...
... A series of studies, including LeRoy and Sonstelie (1983), Sasaki (1990), andBrueckner (2005), analyse transport subsidies, mode selection in public investments, mode choice in daily commuting, and their impact on city size and the intensity of urban sprawl. Brueckner (2005) showed that subsidies have two main effects on city size. First, as they directly reduce the cost of commuting, they can indeed accelerate urban sprawl. ...
... Politics behind public transport policy has received more limited attention in the literature. Brueckner and Selod (2006) and Brueckner (2005) investigated transport system choice from a continuum of monetary price and travel time combinations in an urban economy assuming majority voting. They concluded that cities with a heterogeneous skill and income distribution diverge from social optimum towards less expensive but more time-consuming modes. ...
Public transport provision requires substantial organisational efforts, careful planning, financial contributions from the public, and coordination between millions of passengers and staff members in large systems. Efficient resource allocation is critical in its daily operations. Therefore, public transport has been among the most popular subjects in transport economics since the infancy of this discipline. This paper presents an overview of the literature developed over the past half century, including more than 300 important contributions. With a strong methodological orientation, it collects, classifies, and compares the frequently used analytical modelling techniques, thus providing a cookbook for future research and learning efforts. We discuss key findings on optimal capacity provision, pricing, cost recovery and subsidies, externalities, private operations, public service regulation, and cross-cutting subjects, such as interlinks with urban economics, political economy, and emerging mobility technologies.
... 35 City size and urban sprawl. A series of studies, including LeRoy and Sonstelie (1983), Sasaki (1990), andBrueckner (2005), analyse transport subsidies, mode selection in public investments, mode choice in daily commuting, and their impact on city size and the intensity of urban sprawl. Brueckner (2005) showed that subsidies have two main effects on city size. ...
... A series of studies, including LeRoy and Sonstelie (1983), Sasaki (1990), andBrueckner (2005), analyse transport subsidies, mode selection in public investments, mode choice in daily commuting, and their impact on city size and the intensity of urban sprawl. Brueckner (2005) showed that subsidies have two main effects on city size. First, as they directly reduce the cost of commuting, they can indeed accelerate urban sprawl. ...
... Politics behind public transport policy has received more limited attention in the literature. Brueckner and Selod (2006) and Brueckner (2005) investigated transport system choice from a continuum of monetary price and travel time combinations in an urban economy assuming majority voting. They concluded that cities with a heterogeneous skill and income distribution diverge from social optimum towards less expensive but more time-consuming modes. ...
... Using a monocentric city model with two transportation modes, Creutzig (2014) investigated the effect of fuel prices on public transport infrastructure, modal shares and urban form. Besides the above works with discrete mode choice, some papers developed urban spatial equilibrium models that introduces mode choice as a continuous variable by assuming residents may optimize respective travel time, speeds or costs for objective decisions (e.g., Brown, 1986;DeSalvo and Huq, 2005;Brueckner, 2005). ...
... There are a few studies focusing on transport subsidies in a monocentric city model. Brueckner (2005) was the first to deal with transportation subsidies as a potential source of urban sprawl. They showed that transport subsidies inefficiently lead to the urban expansion if the single-mode transport system exhibits constant returns to scale. ...
... They showed that transport subsidies inefficiently lead to the urban expansion if the single-mode transport system exhibits constant returns to scale. Su and DeSalvo (2008) extended the work of Brueckner (2005) to investigate the effect of transportation subsidies on urban sprawl in a two-mode urban spatial model. It is found by comparative static analysis that there are an inverse relation between transit subsidies and sprawl and a direct relation between auto subsidies and sprawl, which is different from the single-mode results obtained in Brueckner (2005). ...
The objective of this paper is to provide new insights into commuters’ mode choice behavior in a monocentric closed city with endogenous population distribution, where a congested highway and a crowded railway provide commuting services for residents on a linear urban corridor. We first explore the typical equilibrium mode-choice patterns with exogenous city boundary and population distribution, and then incorporate the residents’ mode choice into an urban spatial equilibrium model, in which the residents’ household consumption, the residential location choice and the property developers’ housing production are also explicitly modeled. Using comparative static analysis, we find that the urban corridor expands with the increase of railway fare if there is no congestion in the bimodal transportation system, but it’s not necessarily the case if highway congestion and transit crowding cannot be ignored. We provide numerical evidence to show that the urban corridor possibly shrinks with the increase of railway fare once congestion effects are considered. We also discuss the changes of urban form, utility level of residents and social welfare with different railway fare and subsidy policies. Numerical results show that the distance-based fare policy with low subsidy should be preferred because it can realize the Pareto-improved social welfare and utility level of residents.
... La disposición a pagar por reducir el tiempo de viaje, expresada comúnmente como el valor del tiempo ahorrado o valor subjetivo del tiempo de viaje, desempeña un papel importante en la evaluación de los proyectos de transporte, particularmente en el análisis beneficio-costo de proyectos de infraestructura (Brown y Ryan, 2011) donde gran parte de los beneficios consisten precisamente en ahorros de tiempo (Kidokoro, 2006;Lakshmanan, Nijkamp, Rietveld y Verhoef, 2001). El valor del tiempo también es un elemento esencial en la evaluación del bienestar económico de las propuestas de tarificación del transporte (Calfee y Winston, 1998), en la comprensión de los aspectos económicos de la expansión urbana (Brueckner, 2005) y en la modelación del transporte, como un parámetro a estimar en las funciones de costo utilizadas en los algoritmos de asignación de viajes a la red (Inturri e Ignaccolo, 2011). ...
... Aunque la expansión urbana se puede exacerbar por la pérdida de atractivo de los centros de las ciudades y por las deficiencias en la formulación e implementación de políticas de transporte (Alpkokin, 2012), los economistas urbanos han determinado que el crecimiento espacial de las ciudades es impulsado primordialmente por tres razones: el aumento demográfico de las ciudades, el mayor ingreso de los hogares y la reducción de los costos generalizados de viaje (Brueckner, 2005). Existe evidencia que relaciona las características del sistema de transporte y la expansión urbana (Handy, 2005), así que algunas estrategias empleadas para controlar este fenómeno están relacionadas con la gestión de la demanda de viajes (Habibi & Asadi, 2011), cuyo análisis emplea recurrentemente la valoración del tiempo de viaje, siendo necesaria su correcta cuantificación de manera específica en el contexto estudiado. ...
El estudio analiza la diferencia en la disposición a pagar de estudiantes y trabajadores por reducir el tiempo de viaje, en un contexto de elección de modo de transporte para la ciudad de Tunja (Colombia). Se utilizó un modelo logit mixto, calibrado con datos provenientes de una encuesta de preferencias declaradas. La especificación del modelo supuso la variación aleatoria de los coeficientes del tiempo de acceso, tiempo de espera y tiempo de viaje. Se encontró que la disposición a pagar por reducir el tiempo de viaje es de 38.14 $/min para estudiantes, siendo 23% mayor para trabajadores de menor ingreso y 73% mayor para los trabajadores de mayor ingreso. Se determinó que el valor del tiempo de espera es 1.95 veces mayor que el tiempo viaje, en tanto que el tiempo de acceso mantiene una relación de 1 a 2.57 con respecto al tiempo de viaje, la cual se considera válida únicamente para el contexto estudiado.
... Few studies have focused on transport subsidies in the urban space CGE model. The earliest contributor to the transit subsidy policy was Brueckner (2005). Brueckner explored the relationship between transit subsidy policy and urban form, which, despite reducing the travel cost of households, cannot avoid urban sprawl. ...
... High-income households (N H ) have one car in per and low-income households (N L ) only can choose bus travel. These assumptions have been adopted by previous related studies, such as (Wheaton 1976;Sasaki 1990;Kwon 2003;Brueckner 2005;Wrede 2005, 2008;Li et al. 2012;Li et al. 2016Li et al. , 2017Li et al. , 2019aLi et al. , b, 2020Zhou et al. 2018). ...
The urban form and transportation cycle are common yet crucial factors for urban managers and transportation planners to devise effective transportation management strategies. This paper considers the effects of transit subsidy policy on households' travel behaviors in a computable general equilibrium model of a monocentric city with two income classes. The proposed model explicitly formulates the interrelationship among three parts of agents, namely the government, the agencies providing transportation services, and the households of different income levels. The government is intended by the transit subsidy policy to encourage households to travel by bus and maximize social welfare. Meanwhile, the households choose their residential locations and travel mode to maximize the household's utility under a limited budget. Furthermore, the agencies providing transportation services, as part of the urban transport system, will endeavor to maximize their criteria (utility or profit) since they are determined by the economic conditions. Besides, the model demonstrates that government subsidies for bus travel affect not only the residence location and travel mode of households but also the supply agencies that provide transportation service. The effects are manufactured by applying a numerical general equilibrium approach calibrated revealing a significant relationship between the degree of exposure to the transit subsidy policy and the economic identity of the agencies. The transit subsidy policy is not necessarily beneficial to low-income households. Therefore, it also indicates that the proposed model responds to the impact of transit subsidy policy on household travel behavior, particularly in terms of revealing the relationship between households and internal other agencies.
... It is found that the theoretical framework of the existing mathematical models is often from a particular perspective. For example, such perspectives include studying the effects of smart growth on the basis of ecological benefits [13], researching the connotation of smart growth from the perspective of building density and transportation [10,14,15], discussing the role of residential location and land consumption in smart growth [16], etc. In fact, smart growth can have certain influences both on the field of society, economy, and ecology. ...
... Percentage of residents who can choose between two or more modes of transportation (%) [14,29] 7 ...
Smart growth is widely adopted by urban planners as an innovative approach, which can guide a city to develop into an environmentally friendly modern city. Therefore, determining the degree of smart growth is quite significant. In this paper, sustainable degree (SD) is proposed to evaluate the level of urban smart growth, which is established by principal component regression (PCR) and the radial basis function (RBF) neural network. In the case study of Yumen and Otago, the SD values of Yumen and Otago are 0.04482 and 0.04591, respectively, and both plans are moderately successful. Yumen should give more attention to environmental development while Otago should concentrate on economic development. In order to make a reliable future plan, a self-organizing map (SOM) is conducted to classify all indicators and the RBF neural network-trained indicators are separate under different classifications to output new plans. Finally, the reliability of the plan is confirmed by cellular automata (CA). Through simulation of the trend of urban development, it is found that the development speed of Yumen and Otago would increase slowly in the long term. This paper provides a powerful reference for cities pursuing smart growth.
... Les subventions aux transports constituent une alternative proche de la taxe : en modifiant le coût relatif des transports collectifs par rapport à l'automobile notamment, on peut inciter une partie des usagers à se reporter vers le mode le moins polluant (Borck et Wrede, 2008;Schmutzler, 2011). Toutefois, l'effet global des subventions sur la maîtrise de l'étalement urbain n'est pas prouvé (Brueckner, 2005). Se pose en outre la question du coût de la mesure, dans un contexte de raréfaction des ressources publiques, nationales et locales 23 . ...
... Source de bien-être et de croissance économique, la mobilité des hommes génère en contrepartie des externalités négatives en raison des effets du transport sur l'environnement (Didier et Prud'homme, 2007 (Fujita, 1989), alors que les externalités environnementales (bruit, congestion, qualité de l'air) sont susceptibles de venir dégrader le bien-être de la population (Kanemoto, 1980;Brueckner, 2005;Arnott et al., 2008). ...
Cette thèse s’intéresse aux déplacements domicile-travail en milieu urbain. Nous rappelons le mécanisme d’enchères à la Alonso déterminant les localisations respectives des ménages et des firmes qui façonnent la ville mono- ou polycentrique (Chapitre 1). Dans le chapitre 2, nous adaptons un modèle d’économie urbaine à centre endogène. L’externalité de pollution générée par les déplacements automobiles des ménages est internalisée par la mise en place d’un péage urbain par le régulateur local. Nous montrons que cet instrument environnemental atteint son objectif de dépollution tout en jugulant l’étalement urbain. Les économies d’agglomération dont bénéficient les firmes sont même renforcées. Les chapitres 3 et 4 empruntent une approche empirique. Dans le chapitre 3, nous menons une étude hédonique qui met en avant les effets des Plans de Déplacements Urbains sur la capitalisation immobilière résidentielle. L’accessibilité aux transports collectifs urbains joue un rôle positif sur le prix des appartements à Nantes, de façon contrastée toutefois selon la situation géographique. Dans le quatrième et dernier chapitre, nous estimons le prix des maisons échangées à Nantes par un Spatial Error Model (SEM). Un choc exogène sur le prix du carburant entraînerait une modification du gradient de prix immobiliers favorable à des localisations résidentielles plus centrales.
... Sebaliknya, budaya suburban dengan gagasan urban sprawl menganggap bahwa kemacetan disebabkan karena terlalu banyaknya kendaraan di wilayah yang sempit dan pada beberapa kasus kemacetan memperparah polusi. Oleh karena itu, kota harus dibiarkan berkembang menyebar, sehingga lalu-lintas dapat menyebar dan tidak terfokus pada satu zona saja [4]. ...
Kota Semarang merupakan kota metropolitan yang semakin bertumbuh aktivitas masyarakatnya, hal ini dapat dilihat dari kemacetan lalu lintas di beberapa ruas jalan Kota Semarang. Kemacetan tersebut disebabkan oleh menurunnya kinerja ruas jalan yang dipengaruhi oleh peningkatan volume lalu lintas. Salah satu upaya untuk mengurangi permasalahan tersebut ialah masyarakat disarankan untuk menggunakan kendaraan publik. Mobil penumpang umum atau disebut juga MPU merupakan salah satu komponen dari sistem transportasi perkotaan yang bertujuan untuk mengurangi penggunaan kendaraan pribadi. Sedikit masyarakat yang memanfaatkan pelayanan moda tersebut dan lebih memilih menggunakan kendaraan pribadi karena berbagai kondisi ketidaknyamanan dalam menggunakan moda MPU terlebih pada saat pandemi covid- 19. Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah mengetahui bagaimana unjuk kinerja pelayanan MPU trayek C.8 Kota Semarang. Penelitian ini menggunakan pendekatan deskriptif kuantitatif. Analisis data yang dilakukan adalah : preferensi masyarakat dalam menggunakan MPU, unjuk kinerja pelayanan MPU yang meliputi : faktor muat, frekuensi, waktu antara, waktu tunggu, waktu perjalanan serta kecepatan menurut World Bank dan Kementrian Perhubungan. Metode pengumpulan data pada penelitian ini terdiri dari data primer dan sekunder. Data primer didapatkan melalui survei yaitu : wawancara dan penilaian unjuk kinerja MPU, sedangkan data sekunder berupa dokumen yang terkait dengan unjuk kinerja MPU di Kota Semarang khususnya trayek C.8. Sampel pada penelitian ini akan ditentukan sesuai dengan jumlah populasi penelitian. Hasil dari penelitian ini diharapkan dapat meningkatkan unjuk kinerja MPU yang kemudian disesuaikan dengan permintaan masyarakat pada masa pandemi covid-19 sehingga semakin banyak masyarakat menggunakan MPU dan akan berdampak signifikan pada permasalahan kemacetan lalu lintas di Kota Semarang.
... On the other hand, policies intended to address other urban problems have often resulted in sprawl, such as subsidies and financial programs for housing, and deregulation to counteract rapid out-migration. Sometimes, policies intended to prevent sprawl, such as transit subsidies, have resulted in sprawl [3,4]. ...
This comprehensive study explores urban sprawl in the Seoul Metropolitan Area (SMA), emphasizing its rising intensity and complexity despite previous public-led planning efforts. The study aims to visualize the spatial patterns of sprawl and identify influencing factors through spatial regression analysis using grid-based population data created from actual population distributions. This approach fills a gap in the existing literature by moving beyond administrative-level analyses prone to ecological fallacies. This study scrutinizes the dynamics of population change in Seoul Metropolitan Areas (SMAs) in Korea over a decade, focusing on the predatory aspect of urban sprawl. Using grid-based population data and spatial regression analysis, the study finds that population growth is concentrated in unplanned areas with high development benefits. Three key hypotheses were examined: (1) Areas with high development potential, measured through factors like land prices and development plans, attract predatory development; (2) Improved transportation infrastructure encourages population inflow; (3) Non-urban land use, especially bare land, attracts population growth. The results offer important policy implications, particularly for preparing areas with low land prices and improving transportation infrastructures for future population influxes. Monitoring is particularly crucial in areas where development plans are already in place or where there is a high percentage of bare land.
... The global collective contribution of the transport sector to carbon emissions was estimated to be over 14% of the global estimate (Allen et al., 2012). As cities expand and absorb population growth, global warming (Acar and Dincer, 2020), air pollution (Colvile et al., 2001), traffic congestion (Thomson, 1998), and urban sprawl (Brueckner, 2005) exert increasing pressure on decarbonising transport networks and prioritising more sustainable modes of mobility. ...
Up-to-date information on different modes of travel to monitor transport traffic and evaluate rapid urban transport planning interventions is often lacking. Transport systems typically rely on traditional data sources providing outdated mode-of-travel data due to their data latency, infrequent data collection and high cost. To address this issue, we propose a method that leverages mobile phone data as a cost-effective and rich source of geospatial information to capture current human mobility patterns at unprecedented spatiotemporal resolution. Our approach employs mobile phone application usage traces to infer modes of transportation that are challenging to identify (bikes and ride-hailing/taxi services) based on mobile phone location data. Using data fusion and matrix factorisation techniques, we integrate official data sources (household surveys and census data) with mobile phone application usage data. This integration enables us to reconstruct the official data and create an updated dataset that incorporates insights from digital footprint data from application usage. We illustrate our method using a case study focused on Santiago, Chile successfully inferring four modes of transportation: mass-transit (all public transportation), motorised (cars and similar vehicles), active (pedestrian and cycle trips), and taxi (traditional taxi and ride-hailing services). Our analysis revealed significant changes in transportation patterns between 2012 and 2020. We quantify a reduction in mass-transit usage across municipalities in Santiago, except where metro/rail lines have been more recently introduced, highlighting added resilience to the public transport network of these infrastructure enhancements. Additionally, we evidence an overall increase in motorised transport throughout Santiago, revealing persistent challenges in promoting urban sustainable transportation. Findings also point to a rise in the share of taxi usage, and a drop in active mobility, suggesting a modal shift towards less sustainable modes of travel. We validate our findings comparing our updated estimates with official smart card transaction data. The consistency of findings with expert domain knowledge from the literature and historical transport usage trends further support the robustness of our approach.
... Hal tersebut menandakan bahwa masih terdapat permintaan (demand) trayek ini walaupun berjumlah sedikit (load factor kurang dari 70%). Dikarenakan rendahnya demand penumpang, maka tidak ada pengusaha transportasi yang tertarik sehingga sulit untuk menjadi komersial [27]. ...
Angkutan perintis merupakan program pelayanan angkutan jalan untuk wilayah terisolasi dan tidak memiliki ketersediaan angkutan umum. Salah satu trayek angkutan jalan perintis di Provinsi Banten adalah trayek Serang-Sumur (143 km) yang menghubungkan Ibu Kota Provinsi Banten yaitu Kota Serang dengan wilayah paling barat Pulau Jawa yaitu Kecamatan Sumur. Angkutan jalan perintis trayek Serang-Sumur sudah beroperasi selama lima tahun (2017 - 2021), namun dampaknya terhadap mobilitas masyarakat belum diketahui. Oleh karena itu, perlu dilakukan penelitian untuk mengidentifikasi perkembangan produksi dan layanan yang telah tersedia, dan pengaruh layanan angkutan jalan perintis terhadap mobilitas masyarakat. Untuk mendukung penelitian ini, dilakukan pengumpulan data sekunder berupa data sarana prasarana yang telah tersedia dan produksi angkutan jalan perintis (load factor) dari tahun 2017-2021. Selanjutnya, data primer dikumpulkan dengan bantuan kuisioner kepada 200 penumpang. Metode analisis yang digunakan adalah metode statistik deskriptif serta metode analisis regresi. Penelitian ini menyimpulkan bahwa kehadiran angkutan jalan perintis yang melayani trayek Serang-Sumur sangat memengaruhi mobilitas masyarakat di Kecamatan Sumur. Dengan adanya angkutan jalan perintis tersebut, frekuensi perjalanan masyarakat meningkat sebesar 36,38%, jarak tempuh perjalanan masyarakat meningkat sebesar 18,47%, dan kemudahan perjalanan masyarakat meningkat sebesar 46,07%. Selain itu, dengan menggunakan angkutan jalan perintis tersebut, biaya perjalanan dapat dikurangi sebesar 48,45% atau bernilai 1,94 kali lebih hemat daripada menggunakan moda lain.
... Our model predicts that the use of cars can appear all along with the city and not only in long stretches of the city, where that mode dominates without any use of public transport, as currently available models predict. We also show that the presence 2 An exception is Brueckner (2005), who studies the effect of transport subsidies on the spatial expansion of cities, but also using a simplified transit system and without interaction with a different mode. ...
Public transport is central to commuting in most cities. This paper studies the role of public transportation in shaping the urban structure. Its main contribution is to propose a tractable model as a tool to study urban regulations and transport policies in the long-run. Using the classic monocentric city framework, we model public transport as a mode that can only be accessed by walking to a set of stops. By incorporating a discrete transport mode choice and income heterogeneity, the model remains simple yet can reproduce non-monotonous urban gradients observed in cities with public transport, and well-observed spatial patterns of sorting by income and use of public transport. For example, it can reproduce an inverted U-shape of transit usage along the city. To highlight the relevance of the model, we study the effects of pricing pollution externalities together with extending the public transportation network on the urban structure.
... (3) Transportation sprawl. Transportation sprawl is a key factor to achieve territorial cohesion in the process of urban expansion (Brueckner, 2005). It can influence the formation of regional cohesion along two paths, namely, public transportation scale and public facilities construction, and then affect eco-environmental quality. ...
Rapid urban sprawl in China has caused serious eco-environmental changes, and thus attracted significant attention of the international academic circles. However, the mechanism of influence of urban sprawl on eco-environmental quality has not been addressed adequately. The main objective of this study was to fill this gap by theoretically and empirically studying how urban sprawl influences eco-environmental quality, based on the Spatial Durbin model and on a panel data covering 30 provinces of mainland China during the period 2003–2018. The results show that China’s urban sprawl has significantly decreased the eco-environmental quality under both geographical and economic weight matrices. Moreover, the spillover effect played an essential role in investigating the influence of urban sprawl on eco-environmental quality. From the perspective of regional differences, the direct accumulation effect and the spatial spillover effect involved in the impact of urban sprawl on eco-environmental quality varied across the central, western, and northeast regions. The results of decomposition of urban sprawl into its component parts indicate that population sprawl, socio-economic sprawl, transportation sprawl, and land use sprawl can explain the change of eco-environmental quality in China to varying degrees. During the study period, land use sprawl exhibited the greatest effect on eco-environmental quality, followed by socio-economic sprawl, population sprawl, and transportation sprawl. The government should actively coordinate the development of different types of urban sprawl, thus increasing eco-environmental quality across different regions.
... Thus, transit systems have not been extended as they cost too much for governments and hence minimal bus services have been the standard in many cities. But this has not prevented highly subsidized road systems from being built into urban areas that have resulted in car-based urban sprawl as no alternative urban fabric is possible without its base in alternative transport systems (Brueckner, 2005;Buehler & Pucher, 2011;Parry & Small, 2009;Newman, Kosonen, & Kenworthy, 2016;Tscharaktschiew & Hirte, 2012). This is a political priority but increasingly the sheer economics of subsidizing road and rail has been forcing cities to review their political priorities. ...
... Rossi-Hansberg (2004) and Helsley & Strange (2007) show that, in the face of communication or social interaction externalities which decay with distance, absent appropriate regulation by a single city authority, cities will lack efficient density of activity near the city centre. More informally, Brueckner (2001) and Brueckner (2005) note that uncoordinated developers will take advantage of the fact that congestion is unpriced and public infrastructure may be subsidised which will lead to sprawl, for example, through ribbon developments sited along government built arterial roads. These are strong arguments that uncoordinated and decentralised land development will result in cities that are less compact, offering an empirical prediction in comparing Anglophone and Francophone cities. ...
This thesis consists of four independent chapters on urban and development economics. The first chapter estimates the causal effect of access to new subway stations on employment. I focus on a narrow band on either side of an equidistant line to existing and new subway lines in Shanghai. Comparing employment outcomes between firms on the side of the line nearest to new stations with firms on the side of the line closest to existing stations, identifies the causal effect of the new subway service. I find that every 1km decrease in distance to the subway service improves employment growth of manufacturer firms by 55-58% over five years, while it surprisingly reduces the employment growth of consumer service firms. The second chapter exploits the exogenous shock of an influential online shopping retail discount event in China (similar to Cyber Monday), to investigate how rapid growth of e-commerce affects urban traffic congestion. In the week after the event, intracity traffic congestion dropped by 1.7% during peak hours and 1% during off-peak hours. Using Baidu Index (similar to Google Trends) as a proxy for the changes in online shopping, I find that a 10% increase in online shopping causes a 1.4% reduction in traffic congestion. A welfare analysis conducted for Beijing suggests that the congestion relief effect has a monetary value of around 239 million US dollars a year. The third chapter (co-authored) studies how differential institutions persisting from colonial rule affect the spatial structure of African cities, especially how new patches of development are scattered and spatially disconnected from existing developments. The paper finds that Francophone cities are more compact than Anglophone cities. Geocoded Demographic Health Survey (DHS) data further show that compact cities have better connection to public services. The last chapter (co-authored) evaluates the environmental value of canals in England using a hedonic property price approach. Results reveal that proximity to canals increases house prices and the effect is highly localized. Houses within 100 meters of a canal have a price premium of around 5%, relative to those beyond 1km. A difference-in-differences analysis suggests that re-opening of the Droitwich canals caused price increases of around 10% within 100m of the restored canals, which is consistent with results in the national sample.
... Research on the financial sustainability of public transport focuses on different approaches such as the relationship between subsidies and the type of transportation network [13], in which the researchers pointed out the importance of encouraging investment in public transport networks rather than private ones, in order to increase social welfare; studies carried out for Mohring, 1972;Martin, 2001 [14]; Parry & Small, 2009 about the effect of subsidies on demand encourage the granting of aid with the aim of increasing the number of passengers, offering them the appropriate resources to increase their efficiency. Other studies about the effect of subsidies in terms of social benefits and their impact on urban development [15][16][17][18][19][20][21] have reached conclusions that indicate how subsidies from administrations have an impact on the development of cities, since if they promote private transport, the urban area expands, with the opposite effect occurring in the case of public transport. On the other hand, starting with the seminal work of Mohring [22], academics attempt to model optimal fees and public price levels for transportation ( [23][24][25][26]; among others) which draw conclusions based on the marginal cost model depending on different agents such as waiting times, travel distance, etc. and their relationship with the applied fare. ...
Public transport financing in Spain has generated interest due to the absence of a governing regulatory framework. There is a need for rules that help allocate public subsidies to guarantee the system’s financial sustainability. Without explicit regulation, the current system for assigning and distributing public funding among Spanish cities has become unbalanced. Our goal is to identify the principal factors that explain why urban transport services in different cities require varying levels of public financing. Our results show that variables such as the “passengers,” “number of vehicles,” “number of employees,” “autonomous community deficit”, and “population density” are influencing factors for the needs of public subsidies.
... The objective is the maximization of the net profit, equal to the difference between the revenue obtained from the captured passengers at a price represented by the parameter , plus a possible public subsidy per passenger (see Brueckner, 2005;Cowie, 2009), and the total system cost O SC . The fare per trip is also taken into account as part of the passengers' generalized cost. ...
We solve the Integrated Network Design and Line Planning Problem in Railway Rapid Transit systems with the objective of maximizing the net profit over a planning horizon, in the presence of a competing transportation mode. Since the profitability of the designed network is closely related with passengers’ demand and line operation decisions, for a given demand, a transit assignment is required to compute the profit, calculating simultaneously the frequencies of lines and selecting the most convenient train units. The proposed iterative solving procedure is governed by an adaptive large neighborhood search metaheuristic which, at each iteration, calls a branch-and-cut algorithm implemented in Gurobi in order to solve the assignment and network operation problems. We provide an illustration on a real-size scenario.
... As Brueckner (2005) points out, under reasonable assumptions, net subsidies for road transport increase sprawl (defined as low-density development). They encourage individuals to travel larger distances and therefore facilitate less compact forms of development. ...
Land use has important consequences for the environment, public health, economic productivity, inequality and social segregation. Land use policies are often complex and require co-ordination across all levels of government as well as across policy sectors. Not surprisingly, land use decisions can be contentious and conflicts over land use are common across the OECD. This report argues that better land use governance requires the use of a broader set of public policies to influence land use. In particular, the incentives for particular land uses provided by fiscal instruments and tax policies need to be better aligned with land use objectives. The report furthermore analyses land use patterns across the OECD based on comprehensive land cover data. It shows that developed land is growing everywhere, but great variation exists between countries. Lastly, the report summarises insights from six in-depth case studies to show concrete examples of land use related challenges in OECD countries and the response of national, regional and local governments to them.
... where Y 1 represents number of private cars. Transportation cost is an important factor in travel choice of people (Brueckner, 2005). Therefore, a variable, desire to drive ratio, is introduced based on a fraction between transportation cost and household disposable income. ...
... In reality, various transport modes, e.g., private car, bus and subway, compete with each other for serving residents who live in different places in a city. To our knowledge, some researchers investigated the joint choices of travel mode and residential location in a city model with user homogeneity or by dividing residents into different income groups (e.g., LeRoy and Sonstelie, 1983;Sasaki, 1989Sasaki, , 1990Brueckner, 2005;Borck, and Wrede, 2008;Su and DeSalvo, 2008;Creutzig, 2014;Buyukeren and Hiramatsu, 2015;Xu et al., 2016). In these models, all residents are assumed to be completely rational and have similar consuming decisions, i.e., their direct utilities only depend on the consumption of two normal goods, a housing service and a composite non-housing good. ...
The existing monocentric city models mostly assume that residents are completely rational when making residential location and mode choice, and their direct utilities only depend on the consumption of two normal goods, a housing service and a composite non-housing good. This paper develops a new model by explicitly integrating the preference for solo-driving into car owners' direct utility functions. It is found that, an upward sloping rent-distance relationship exists nearby the Central Business District (CBD) when all residents are car owners, which is significantly different from the conclusion reported in literature. Considering the impact of car owners' preference for solo-driving, we differentiate two possible urban spatial patterns in a monocentric city with car-owning and no-car-owning residents. Numerical results show that an increase of car ownership does not always lead to an expansion in the city size.
... Reviewing the definitions offered by scholars show that a number of them focused more on the physical dimensions (Harvey & Clark, 1965;Ottensmann, 1977), since the early 1980s and by rising of environmental impacts, many of scholars also emphasized on environmental consequences in addition to physical dimensions (Downs, 1999;Ewing, 1997;Galster et al., 2001;Wilson & Chakraborty, 2013). By expanding the scope of studies on sprawl, further studies focused on social implications (Jenks, Kozak, & Takkanon, 2008;Masnavi, 2000), economic dimensions of sprawl (Banzhaf & Lavery, 2010;Bento, Franco, & Kaffine, 2006;Brueckner, 2005;Hortas-Rico, 2014;Turner, 2007;Wassmer, 2016), and in recent years, sprawl and public health has been an important topic of interest for researchers (Eid et al., 2008;McCann & Ewing, 2003;Sturm & Cohen, 2004). ...
During the recent decades, debates about urban sprawl have increased strongly in Iran. Literature review shows that there are few studies about causes of sprawl in urban areas of Iran. This paper analyses driving forces in creation or intensification of urban sprawl in Iranian cities. The methodology of the research is based on documentary and survey method. Results indicate that the most important drivers of urban sprawl are 22 factors in Iran. By using exploratory factor analysis, 22 factors are summarized in eight main factors. These factors include population growth, land value, political fragmentation, land speculation, transportation policies, exterior pressure, management system and land use. The eight main factors are able to explain an average of 76.9% of the urban sprawl phenomenon in Iran. The analysis of variance indicates that none of them can be effective in explaining urban sprawl alone in Iran that they were explained by each factor on urban sprawl. The population growth has the highest impact by 13% and land use has the lowest impact by about 7%. The margin of discrepancy between variance was explained by factors that suggest all of the eight extracted factors play a key role in the urban sprawl of Iran. Policies for controlling and reducing consequences of this phenomenon should be initiated by the government by considering the influential role of government in the urban sprawl of Iran. In particular, it can be helpful to establish integrated urban management, a compilation of comprehensive law about urban land and pay attention to worn‐out textures and brownfield development.
... By introducing the concept of "space" into the research framework, the function of subsidies can be studied based on their action mechanisms in the spatial distribution of populations. The classical monocentric urban model assumes that transport subsidies will decrease the bid-rent curve slope, resulting in a larger urban area, lower population density, and a reduced suburban-urban rent differentiation, though they will cause urban expansion and road congestion [16,17]. In light of such negative effects, Borck and Wrede [18], adopting the perspective of political economy, considered the political ramifications of government decisions to subsidize public transport as a form of income redistribution. ...
Public transport plays an important role in the environment. This study established a Spatial Computable General Equilibrium (SCGE) model to examine the economic and environmental effects of public transport subsidy policies. The model includes firms, consumers, and traffic modules in one framework. Statistical data from Beijing were used in calibration to obtain benchmark equilibrium. Based on the equilibrium, simulations compared citywide social welfare, jobs-housing spatial population distribution, and environmental outputs under four subsidy policies: fare subsidy, cash grants, road expansion, and public transport speedup. Based on the results regarding the effects of public transport policies, conclusions can be drawn about which policies will have greater overall social influence and should therefore be used.
... The objective is the maximization of the net profit, equal to the difference between the revenue obtained from the captured passengers at a price represented by the parameter , plus a possible public subsidy per passenger (see Brueckner, 2005;Cowie, 2009), and the total system cost O SC . The fare per trip is also taken into account as part of the passengers' generalized cost. ...
We propose a matheuristic for the integrated Railway Rapid Transit Network Design and Line Planning problem. The network design problem incorporates costs related to the network construction and proposes a set of candidate lines. The line planning problem determines the best combination of frequencies and train capacities for the set of lines considering rolling stock, personnel and fleet acquisition costs. We consider an alternative transportation mode competing with the railway system for each origin-destination pair. Passengers choose their transportation mode according to their own utility. Due to the problem complexity and the impossibility of solving the problem on realistic size scenarios, we develop a matheuristic combining an Adaptive Large Neighborhood Search (ALNS) algorithm and a transit assignment model. At each iteration, in a cooperative way, the ALNS solves the network design problem and the assignment model is in charge of the line planning problem.
... Dans ce cadre actualisé, il est par ailleurs possible d'incorporer des sources d'aménités, qui expliquent par exemple pourquoi les ménages aisés s'installent plutôt loin du centre dans les villes américaines et plutôt près du centre dans les villes européennes (FUJITA, 1989). D'autre part, des externalités environnementales (bruit, congestion, qualité de l'air) peuvent être intégrées: la correction des dommages causés par des instruments environnementaux (normes, subventions, taxes, marches de droits à polluer) contribue alors à améliorer le bien-être de la population (KANEMOTO, 1980 ;BRUECKNER, 2005 ;ARNOTT et al., 2008). Le cadre théorique relatif à la capitalisation immobilière résidentielle des gains d'accessibilité et des sources d'aménités et de nuisances se révèle donc bien adapté à notre problématique. ...
Évaluation des impacts environnementaux d'un Plan de Déplacements Urbains (PDU) et de leurs conséquences socio-économiques : développements méthodologiques et tests sur le PDU de Nantes Métropole
Bir tür kentsel gelişim morfolojisini betimleyen kentsel yayılma, dünya kentlerinin sürdürülebilirliği ile ilgili endişe verici sorun alanlarından biri olup, Türkiye’deki büyükşehirlerin de bu sorunla yüzleştiği görülmektedir. Politika yapıcıların farkında olmadan yayılmayı teşvik eden düzenlemeler yapması kentin çeperlerinde yeni yaşama mekânlarının oluşma eğilimini artırmakta ve düzensiz kentsel büyümeye yol açmaktadır. Kontrollü kentsel büyüme, doğal kaynakların yanı sıra finansal kaynakların da en etkin kullanımını vurgulamakta olup, kentlerin denetimsiz genişlemesi yerel yönetimlerce sağlanan hizmetlerin mali yükünü artırmaktadır. Kentsel yayılmanın çeperlerde yer alan bölgelerde yeni yaşam alanları kurulması ile ilişkili olduğu varsayıldığında, çeperlerdeki konut arz ve talep göstergelerini kontrollü kentsel büyümeyi başarmak için göz önünde bulundurulması gereken faktörler arasında göstermek mümkündür. Bu nitel araştırmada kentsel yayılma alanları ve bu alanlardaki konut talebine etki eden sosyoekonomik ve mekânsal faktörler ele alınmıştır. Dünyadaki eğilimler, kontrollü bir kentsel büyüme için politika yapıcıların müdahaleci olmak yerine yönlendirici bir rol üstlenmeleri gerektiğini ortaya koymaktadır. Bu bağlamda, kentsel büyüme eğilimini ölçmek ve kontrolsüz büyümeye daha etkin müdahale edebilmek için kentsel yayılma alanlarında kent merkezinden farklılaşan konut dinamiklerinin ve bu alanlardaki konut talebine ilişin varsayımların dikkate alınması gerektiği sonucuna varılmaktadır.
Urbanization is happening differently today than in the past and occurring most rapidly in places with the fewest resources. Traditional approaches are not able to keep up, leaving billions of people with poor access to basic necessities, dragging down economies and damaging the environment. This synthesis report of the Towards a More Equal City series proposes a new way of thinking about urban development, where the metrics for a functional and thriving city are defined by the quality, reliability and affordability of essential services. The report brings together the best thinking from over six years of research and more than 160 authors and reviewers. It acts as a roadmap for how to break through sectoral silos and the status quo to make cities more equal, which will in turn create prosperity, reduce environmental damage and improve livelihoods. The report documents breakthrough innovations from numerous cities, revealing real solutions and the outcomes of investing in equitable service provision. It also offers a clear path to recovery now and resilience in the future. Human development challenges are increasingly urban development challenges, including the ways in which they relate to climate change. These findings can help cities, countries and the global community make progress on critical global objectives, from the Sustainable Development Goals and UN Habitat’s New Urban Agenda to the Paris Agreement and COVID-19 recovery.
The Housing Choice Voucher Program assists low‐income families to afford decent housing and provide them with better economic opportunities. There is growing evidence that public transportation plays an important role in shaping the residential location choices of low‐income households. However, transportation has not been a major focus of the research related to housing voucher programs. We develop a general equilibrium model of a city with multiple districts, decentralized employment, multiple commuting modes, and locally financed education. We compare housing vouchers with transportation vouchers with respect to poverty deconcentration, educational quality in each district, unskilled employment in the suburbs, and welfare.
A method is proposed for forecasting traffic intensity at the border of an agglomeration’s core, using demographic data such as amount (number) and structure of population and housing in the surrounding (suburban) area. Relationships between groups of variables are analyzed by calibrating traffic and demographic models for a selected agglomeration in Poland. The choice of Poland is justified by an intensive suburbanization process that took place during the transition from a centrally controlled market to a free market economy after 1989, such research being quite novel and original for this country. Three assumptions concerning this research methodology (concerning how to specify the research area and parameters characterizing traffic and population) were formulated and tested. Models (dependencies) acquired this way were tested in another Polish agglomeration of similar size, yielding similar results. Very high correlations between characteristic groups of variables were indicated. The best correlation occurred between an intensity of cars leaving the center of an agglomeration in the afternoon rush hour (as a traffic group variable), with the total population, the number of economically active people, and the number of dwellings in the surrounding areas (being population group variables). A novel way of specifying the range of the surrounding areas influencing the main city traffic was proposed. The results obtained and the models constructed should be applicable for other agglomerations, since the universality of the observed phenomena and their relationships are expected.
Institutions persisting from colonial rule affect the spatial structure and conditions under which 100s of millions of people live in Sub-saharan African cities. In a sample of 318 cities, Francophone cities have more compact development than Anglophone, overall, in older colonial sections, and at clear extensive margins long after the colonial era. Compactness covers intensity of land use, gridiron road structures and leapfrogging of new developments. Why the difference? Under British indirect and dual mandate rule, colonial and native sections developed without coordination. In contrast, integrated city planning and land allocation were featured in French direct rule. These differences in planning traditions persist.1
In this paper we incorporate the spacing of transit lines in addition to frequencies, vehicle sizes and routes in the strategic design of a transit network. As a first step, we revisit and improve the parallel-lines-spacing-model studied by Chang and Schonfeld (1991), showing that the single-line model properties subsist for each of the parallel lines, and that spacing diminishes and frequency increases with patronage making waiting and access costs equal at the optimum. Secondly, we consider the choice between basic strategic lines structures as feeder-trunk, hub-and-spoke or direct services, in a model of a general city parametrically represented where lines spacing is optimized jointly with frequencies, vehicle sizes and routes of all lines involved. We show that the link between spacing and frequency persists (i.e. waiting and access costs remain equal), that the inclusion of spacing delays the evolution of the lines structure from transfer based schemes to more direct services, and that it is a source of scale economies.
Through developing a spatial equilibrium model for a linear monocentric city with a bi-modal traffic corridor (i.e., highway and public transit), this paper examines the effect of transportation improvements (including the decreases of the fixed travel cost, the travel time and monetary cost per unit distance) on urban spatial structure and the utilities of two resident classes, namely car-available-residents (CARs) and car-unavailable-residents (CURs). As a result, it is demonstrated that the city size increases with the improvements of vehicle-highway system and the degree of CARs’ travel mode choice rationality, but the improvement of public transit may produce a shrinkage rather than an expansion in city size. From the aspect of utility, both CARs and CURs benefit from the improvement of vehicle-highway system; however, the improvement of public transit might have an adverse effect on the utility of CARs. These findings would provide valuable reference for the future transportation and urban planning.
Transportation economists apply different labor supply models when examining transport pricing: (i) endogenous working hours; (ii) endogenous workdays; (iii) labor supply as a residual. We study whether the optimal level of transport taxes that changes the relative cost of labor supply margins is robust against the model applied. We find surprisingly strong differences in the level of optimal fuel and miles taxes and even variation in the sign of the Ramsey terms. For instance, the US and UK optimal fuel taxes vary up to 19% and 15% and the Ramsey terms up to 73% and 130%. Finally, we develop a recommendation for research on all issues that include decisions on commuting trips: Researchers should apply both a model of endogenous working hours and a model of endogenous workdays because the first provides the upper limit and the second the lower limit for optimal tax levels and Pigouvian and Ramsey terms.
The purpose of this paper is to investigate, using both theoretical and numerical analysis, the impact of agglomeration externalities on short-run policy decisions in public transport, i.e. socially optimal pricing, frequency setting, and subsidisation. We develop a simple two-mode model in which commuters can opt for car or public transport use; car use leads to congestion, and public transport is subject to crowding. Allowing for agglomeration externalities, we show the following results. First, if car use is correctly priced for congestion, agglomeration benefits imply substantially lower public transport fares and higher frequencies. They neutralise to some extent the pressure to increase fares to correct the crowding externality. Second, as a consequence, agglomeration benefits justify low cost recovery ratios in public transport. Assuming an agglomeration elasticity of 1.04, a value well within the range of reported elasticities, numerical implementation of the model finds that cost-recovery ratios are 35.8% lower than in the absence of the productivity externality. Third, interestingly, the effect of agglomeration benefits on fares and frequency is much smaller if road use is exogenously under-priced. In this case, any modal shift induced by lower public transport fares has opposing agglomeration effects on the two modes, since agglomeration benefits are not mode-specific.
Deutsche Städte werden immer dichter bebaut ‐ zum Nachteil von vielen Stadtbewohner(inne)n. Damit eine hohe Lebensqualität gewährt werden kann, muss Stadtentwicklung öffentliche Räume stärken. Denn gemeinschaftlich genutzte Flächen wie Parks oder Plätze können wesentliche Bedürfnisse nach sozialem Austausch oder Naturerfahrungen befriedigen und die Städte so lebenswerter machen.The paper discusses the trend of ongoing land consumption in German cities and their implications for socially inclusive and ecological urban development models. Highlighting how land use in Germany has changed since 1990, we focus on housing and mobility ‐ the two sectors that have had the most impact on land consumption nationwide. Our analysis of ten demographically growing cities in Germany shows land consumption to be driven not only by demo-graphic growth itself, but also by modes of living and transportation that are exclusive to certain privileged groups. In the cities we studied, these developments would seem to benefit the few, but affect the lives of everyone. Based on these results, we sketch out various ideas and approaches that could support a socially inclusive and ecological urban development policy. Supporting a cultural shift from a private luxury model to one based on public welfare is crucial to reducing land consumption and ensuring that all members of the population can gain access to “the good life”.
Commuting subsidy has become a common practice with the reform on government vehicles in China. It aims to reduce commuting costs. This paper first discusses the reform of government vehicles and the introduction of commuting subsidy. It then investigates factors that determine the eligibility of receiving commuting subsidy and the amount of commuting subsidy. Finally, the paper examines the impacts of commuting subsidy on commuting burden and fairness. Using the 2015–2016 Tianjin Traffic and Housing Survey, we found that public sector employees, private car drivers, and male workers are more likely to receive commuting subsidies. The levels of commuting subsidy are positively related to the status of public sector employees, the monetary and time costs of commuting, and the use of private vehicles. Commuting subsidy makes commuting burden less regressive with income and narrows the burden gap between the subsidized and unsubsidized groups.
I exploit a kink in the benefit scheme of a large commuter tax break to study the effect of subsidizing commuting costs on the commuting distance of employees. My results show a significant change in slope in the relationship between income and commuting distance exactly at the income level where the commuting subsidy becomes more generous. I test the robustness of this finding by using variation in the location of the benefit kink over time. My results indicate that commuting subsidies can indeed increase the length of the commute. This finding contributes to discussions about the efficacy of such subsidies, which often are justified on the grounds of making workers more mobile.
Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Abstract Transportation economists apply different labor supply models when studying anti-congestion policy: (i) endogenous working hours; (ii) endogenous workdays but given daily working hours; (iii) labor supply as a residual. We study whether the outcome of anti-congestion policies that change the relative cost of labor supply margins, and, thus, may affect decisions on working hours and working days, is robust against the model applied. In particular, we focus on welfare implications in the presence of other taxes when there is a congestion externality. We find surprisingly strong differences in quantity and sign. Further, we develop a clear recommendation for future research on issues that include decisions on commuting trips. Researchers shall apply both a model of endogenous working hours that provides an upper limit and a model of endogenous workdays that provide a lower limit of results for welfare changes, optimal policies and two optimal tax components (Pigouvian and Ramsey terms). JEL classification: H2, H3, J2, R1, R4
This paper analyses theoretically the effect of transportation and housing subsidies on urban sprawl, modal choice decisions and urban spatial structure using a spatial general equilibrium model in a monocentric city with two transport modes. Our analysis shows that public transit subsidy leads to urban shrink, whilst subsidizing automobile and housing make the city sprawl. We also find the effects of the other factors on urban sprawl, such as households income and demand, rural land rent, the income tax rate, the total fixed cost of public transit and automobile and the travelling marginal cost of public transit and automobile. Furthermore, this paper also studies how to maximize the urban-area-wide spatial equilibrium utility level.
The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of the greenbelt (Restricted Development Zones: RDZs) on anti-sprawl in order to evaluate the effectiveness of urban growth management. To estimate the sprawl level, the compactness index (CI) is developed covering both population and employment densities. As CI increases, the sprawl level decreases. I compare the influence of the RDZs on sprawl level between five urban areas (UAs) where the RDZs have been removed and other seven UAs where the RDZs are still maintained. In addition, the impacts are compared among 2001 (previous lifted-up), 2007 (right after lifted-up), and 2013 (current). The results show that the level of urban compactness in the five UAs where RDZs have been lifted up is exacerbated, while the levels have been improved in other seven MSAs. In addition, the influence of RDZs near the central business district (CBD) is larger than that in the urban fringe areas. In some UAs, the RDZs are associated with increasing leap-frog developments, but those in most UAs are not closely connected to the leap-frog pattern.
Using an urban economic model with an endogenous centre where agents freely choose land quantities, we prove to what extent policies aimed at abating pollution generated by working households’ commuting trips involve a better control of urban sprawl as a positive side-effect. After the eco-tax has been applied to households by a local planner in the form of a linear urban toll, agglomeration economies which incited firms to group together in the Central Business District (CBD) keep on working as a positive externality. Under certain conditions, they are even strengthened.
In the modern welfare state a substantial part of an individual's tax bill is transferred back to the same individual taxpayer in the form of social transfers. This provides a rationale for financing part of social insurance through mandatory savings accounts. We analyze the behavioral and welfare effects of compulsory savings accounts in an intertemporal model with uncertainty, involuntary unemployment, endogenous retirement decisions, credit constraints, and heterogeneous agents. We show that the introduction of (early) retirement and unemployment accounts generates a Pareto improvement by enabling the government to provide lifetime income insurance and liquidity insurance in a more efficient manner.
A rapidly growing literature in industrial economics and regional economics uses data sets of individual firms or regional
firm creation rates to answer the central question: what makes entrepreneurs? Which factors encourage some people to set up
their own business and create jobs, and what prevents potential entrepreneurs from doing so? This contribution explores the
determinants of regional differences in firm creation rates by using a new data set of 4,036 individual firms from Southwest
Germany around 1900. Agglomeration effects and earlier firm creations stimulate current firm creation. In addition, a small
and medium firm environment allows the formation of specific human capital — another favourable factor for a dynamic firm
creation process in some regions.
The authors begin with an overview of the causes and consequences of urban sprawl in the twentieth century, focusing in particular on lower transportation costs and self-sorting of the population. By sprawl, we will mean the tendency toward lower city densities as city footprints expand. They next focus on four issues that raise clear efficiency and equity concerns: unproductive congestion on roads, high levels of metropolitan car pollution, the loss of open space amenities, and unequal provision of public goods and services across sprawling metropolitan suburbs that give rise to residential segregation and pockets of poverty. Finally, they consider the trade-offs inherent in some policies commonly proposed to address urban sprawl.
Throughout, a main theme of the discussion is that a full analysis of sprawl is made difficult by the lack of a usefully integrated economic model of urban economies. Along these lines, the authors conclude with some thoughts on possible future research agendas.
This article argues that urban spatial expansion results mainly from three powerful forces: a growing population, rising incomes, and falling commuting costs. Urban growth occurring purely in response to these fundamental forces cannot be faulted as socially undesirable, but three market failures may distort their operation, upsetting the allocation of land between agricultural and urban uses and justifying criticism of urban sprawl. These are the failure to account for the benefits of open space, excessive commuting because of a failure to account for the social costs of congestion, and failure to make new development pay for the infrastructure costs it generates. Precise remedies for these market failures are two types of development taxes and congestion tolls levied on commuters. Each of these remedies leads to a reduction in the spatial size of the city.
Urban transportation systems and travel behavior vary widely, even among countries with similar per-capita income, technology, and urbanization. This article compares modal-split-how people get from place to place-for 12 countries in Western Europe and North America. Differences in travel behavior arise largely from public policy differences, especially from differences in automobile taxation. In addition, variations in transit subsidies, land use controls, and housing programs significantly influence travel choices, although sometimes only indirectly. The success of public transportation depends more on supportive urban development and automobile taxation policies than on transit subsidies. The absence of such complementary policies in the US-unlike the other countries studied-explains the ineffectiveness of the attempt to revive American public transportation exclusively through large subsidies. -Author
This book examines the economic reasons why people choose to live where they live and develops, through analysis of the bid rent function, a unified theory of urban land use and city size. The first part of the book explicates the basic theory of urban land use and optimal city size. Residential location behavior of households is examined in a microeconomic framework and equilibrium and optimal patterns of residential land use are discussed. The corresponding equilibrium and optimal city sizes are studied in a variety of contexts. Part Two extends the classical theories of von Thunen and Alonso with the addition of externality factors such as local public goods, crowding and congestion, and racial prejudice. The rigorous mathematical approach and theoretical treatment of the material make Urban Economic Theory of interest to researchers in urban economics, location theory, urban geography, and urban planning.
This paper extends the existing comparative statics analysis about open or semiclosed cities, notably that of W. Wheaton [J. Econom. Theor., 9 (2), 223–237 (1974)], to a fully closed city, where urban land rent is redistributed to the city population. Specifically, we examine the effects on changes in exogenous variables, such as population size, agricultural rent, and initial endowments, on endogenous variables such as welfare level, city size, and rent schedule. Most, but not all, of the existing results are reestablished. Surprisingly, it is shown that, in contrast to the existing literature, and perhaps to intuition, the city area may shrink when the city population increases. The paper also extends the existing literature by analyzing the effect of the exogenous variables on the endogenous income and the demand for transportation. It is shown that, under plausible assumptions, the quantity of transportation demanded declines with its price.
We investigate the impact of the tax treatment of owner-occupied housing on urban form in an economy in which high and low income households choose among city and suburban communities. The spatial impact of housing tax policies differs depending upon the extent to which the subsidy is capitalized into city land prices and whether a land use constraint such as suburban large lot zoning exists to make poorer households less mobile. The greater the extent of capitalization, the larger the decentralization impact. And, in the presence of binding large lot zoning in the suburbs, the rich have a greater incentive to decentralize while the poor are constrained to the city. It is noteworthy that our analyses of community choice and residential sorting by income are not driven by different preferences for city or suburb that may be associated with the income elasticity of housing demand. Rather, our conclusions arise from changes in relative after-tax housing prices faced by poor and rich households. Determining the empirical relevance of prices versus preferences in these matters should be an urgent task for future research.
This paper analyzes the political economy of transport-system choice, with the goal of gaining an understanding of the forces involved in this important urban public policy decision. Transport systems pose a continuous trade-off between time and money cost, so that a city can choose a fast system with a high money cost per mile or a slower, cheaper system. The paper compares the socially optimal transport system to the one chosen under the voting process, focusing on both homogeneous and heterogeneous cities, while considering different landownership arrangements. The analysis identifies a bias toward underinvestment in transport quality in heterogeneous cities.
A model of non-monocentric urban land use is presented, which requires neither employment nor residential location to be specified a priori. It is shown that the model is capable of yielding multicentric pattern as well as monocentric and dispersed patterns, and that the model generally yields multiple equilibria under each fixed set of parameter values. It is also shown that the city may undergo a catastrophic structural transition when the parameters take critical values.
Public policy has remained stoutly resistant to the economic profession's call to use congestion tolls to minimize the social costs from automobile congestion. This paper explores this issue by using stated preference models to estimate the value that commuters are willing to pay to save travel time. We find that this value is low and surprisingly insensitive to travel conditions and how toll revenues are used. It appears that even high-income commuters, having adjusted to congestion through their modal, residential, workplace, and departure time choices, simply do not value travel time savings enough to benefit substantially from tolls.
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.
This paper explores the connection between the property tax and urban sprawl. While the tax's depressing effect on improvements reduces population density, spurring the spatial expansion of cities, a countervailing effect from lower dwelling sizes may dominate, raising densities and making cities smaller. The analysis shows that this latter outcome is guaranteed under CES preferences when the elasticity of substitution sigma is high. But numerical results for the Leontief case (where sigma is zero) suggest that the property tax encourages urban sprawl when substitution between housing and other goods is low. Thus, the distortions generated by the property tax may include inefficient spatial expansion of cities, suggesting the tax may belong on the list of causal factors identified by critics of urban sprawl.
Copyright 2003 by Kluwer Academic Publishers
This paper explores the connection between the property tax and urban sprawl. While the tax's depressing effect on improvements reduces population density, spurring the spatial expansion of cities, a countervailing effect from lower dwelling sizes may dominate, raising densities and making cities smaller. The analysis shows that this latter outcome is guaranteed under CES preferences when the elasticity of substitution σ is high. But numerical results for the Leontief case (where σ is zero) suggest that the property tax encourages urban sprawl when substitution between housing and other goods is low. Thus, the distortions generated by the property tax may include inefficient spatial expansion of cities, suggesting the tax may belong on the list of causal factors identified by critics of urban sprawl. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 2003
This paper investigates the effects of an equiproportional transport improvement (or, equivalently, a fall in the ‘price’ of transportation) in a fully-closed monocentric city. It focuses on the impact of the improvement on aggregate land rents, differential land rents, and aggregate transport costs. The elasticity of the aggregate transport demand is related to the elasticity of substitution between land and all other goods and the compensated elasticity of demand for land.
This paper analyzes the impacts of urban transportation system changes and income changes on the welfare of people and on the urban spatial structure, in a setting where the income level differs between two groups, and two transportation modes compete with each other in a city. It is demonstrated that an improvement in some transport facility will not necessarily increase the welfare level of every household, and, at times decreases the welfare of some households. It also is argued that under particular situations, an improvement in a particular transport mode may produce a contraction in the city size rather than an expansion. Similarly, an increase in income of one group might have an adverse effect on the welfare of another income group as a result of competition in the land market.
Comparative static analysis of a Nechyba Urban sprawl
- T J Walsh
Comparative static analysis of a Nechyba, T.J., Walsh, R., 2003. Urban sprawl. Journal of Economic Literature, forth-coming
Sprawl and urban growth Comparative static analysis of a residential economy with several classes
- E L Glaeser
- M E Kahn
Glaeser, E.L., Kahn, M.E., in press. Sprawl and urban growth. In: Henderson, J.V., Thisse, J.-F. (Eds.), Handbook of Urban Economics, vol. IV, Elsevier, Amsterdam. Hartwick, J., Schweizer, U., Varaiya, P., 1976. Comparative static analysis of a residential economy with several classes. Journal of Economic Theory 13, 396 – 413.
Urban Transportation Economics Making Transit Work: Insight From Western Europe, Canada, and the United States
- K A Small
Small, K.A., 1992. Urban Transportation Economics. Harwood Academic Publishers, Chur, Switzerland. Transportation Research Board, 2001. Making Transit Work: Insight From Western Europe, Canada, and the United States. National Academy Press, Washington, DC.