Search Results
Discussion Paper
Economic distress and resurgence in U.S. central cities: concepts, causes, and policy levers
This paper provides a review of the literature on U.S. central city growth and distress during the second half of the twentieth century. It finds that city growth tended to be higher in metropolitan areas with favorable weather, higher growth, and greater human capital, while distress was strongly correlated with city-level manufacturing legacy. The article affirms that distress has been highly persistent, but that some cities have achieved resurgence through a combination of strong leadership, collaboration across sectors and institutions, clear and broad-based strategies, and significant ...
Journal Article
Spotlight: Texas subprime mortgages: metros vary on risky loans--and delinquencies
The current financial crisis has brought a severe decline in subprime mortgage lending. Like the nation, Texas and its metros still have exposure to existing loans. Housing prices, unemployment and overall economic activity will play a significant part in determining how many of them run into trouble.
Journal Article
Income growth shows Houston's economic strength and maturity
Journal Article
The concentration of poverty within metropolitan areas
Not only has poverty recently increased in the United States, it has also become more concentrated. This Commentary documents changes in the concentration of poverty in metropolitan areas over the last decade. The analysis shows that the concentration of poverty tends to be highest in northern cities, and that wherever overall poverty or unemployment rates went up the most over the course of the decade, the concentration of poverty tended to increase there as well.
Journal Article
Sprawl : friend or foe to rural places?
Working Paper
Regional resilience
In this paper, I study long-run population changes across U.S. metropolitan areas. First, I argue that changes over a long period of time in the geographic distribution of population can be informative about the so-called resilience" of regions. Using the censuses of population from1790 to 2010, I find that persistent declines, lasting two decades or more, are somewhat rare among metropolitan areas in U.S. history, though more common recently. Incorporating data on historical factors, I find that metropolitan areas that have experienced extended periods of weak population growth tend to be ...
Journal Article
Hybrid Officing Will Shift Where People and Businesses Decide to Locate
Many businesses are likely to shift to hybrid officing following the pandemic, with employees working remotely several days per week. The reduced frequency of commutes and associated decrease in traffic may fuel residential construction in outlying suburbs, especially in the largest metropolitan areas. At the same time, suburban employers may move their offices closer to city centers due to reduced space needs, eased parking constraints, and less frequent commutes.
Journal Article
Three keys to the city: resources, agglomeration economies, and sorting
Metropolitan areas in the U.S. contain almost 80 percent of the nation?s population and nearly 85 percent of its jobs. This high degree of spatial concentration of people and jobs leads to congestion costs and higher housing costs. To offset these costs, workers must receive higher wages, and higher wages increase firms? costs. So why do firms continue to produce in cities where the cost of doing business is so high? Economists offer three main explanations. First, cities developed and grew because of some natural advantage, such as a port. Second, as cities grew, the resulting concentration ...
Journal Article
Location dynamics: a key consideration for urban policy
What determines where businesses and households locate? Location decisions can affect the economic health of cities and metropolitan areas. But as Jeffrey Brinkman explains, how firms, residents, and workers go about choosing where to locate can involve complex interactions with sometimes unpredictable consequences.