Working Paper

Monocentric city redux

Abstract: This paper argues that centralized employment remains an empirically relevant stylization of midsize U.S. metros. It extends the monocentric model to explicitly include leisure as a source of utility but constrains workers to supply fixed labor hours. Doing so sharpens the marginal disutility from longer commutes. The numerical implementation calibrates traffic congestion to tightly match observed commute times in Portland, Oregon. The implied geographic distribution of CBD workers' residence tightly matches that of Portland. The implied population density, land price, and house price gradients approximately match empirical estimates. Variations to the baseline calibration build intuition on underlying mechanics.

Keywords: Urban Land Use; Commuting; Leisure; Value of Time;

JEL Classification: R12; R14; R41;

Bibliographic Information

Provider: Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City

Part of Series: Research Working Paper

Publication Date: 2014-11-01

Number: RWP 14-9

Pages: 36 pages