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RETAIL AMENITIES AND URBAN SPRAWL
Author(s) -
Dodds Stefan,
Dubrovinsky Mati
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of regional science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.171
H-Index - 79
eISSN - 1467-9787
pISSN - 0022-4146
DOI - 10.1111/jors.12146
Subject(s) - urban sprawl , economies of agglomeration , externality , economic geography , welfare , economics , urban agglomeration , population , general equilibrium theory , urban economics , business , microeconomics , urban planning , market economy , ecology , demography , sociology , biology
ABSTRACT This paper examines the interaction between local retail markets and population density in cities. We demonstrate that welfare costs of urban sprawl need not come only from road congestion or environmental externalities, as often suggested in the literature. A city also forgoes potential agglomeration economies in retail when it settles into a spatially sprawling equilibrium. Our theory predicts an additional spatial equilibrium where the city is inefficiently dense, characterized by strong retail agglomeration economies within the core.