IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ecl/harjfk/15-061.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Do People Shape Cities, or Do Cities Shape People? THe Co-evolution of Physical, Social and Economic Change in Five Major U.S. Cities

Author

Listed:
  • Naik, Nikhil

    (MIT)

  • Kominers, Scott Duke

    (Harvard University)

  • Raskar, Ramesh

    (MIT)

  • Glaeser, Edward L.

    (Harvard University)

  • Hidalgo, Cesar A.

    (MIT)

Abstract

Urban change involves transformations in the physical appearance and the social composition of neighborhoods. Yet, the relationship between the physical and social components of urban change is not well understood due to the lack of comprehensive measures of neighborhood appearance. Here, we introduce a computer vision method to quantify change in physical appearance of streetscapes and generate a dataset of physical change for five large American cities. We combine this dataset with socioeconomic indicators to explore whether demographic and economic changes precede, follow, or co-occur with changes in physical appearance. We find that the strongest predictors of improvement in a neighborhood's physical appearance are population density and share of college-educated adults. Other socioeconomic characteristics, like median income, share of vacant homes, and monthly rent, do not predict improvement in physical appearance. We also find that neighborhood appearances converge to the initial appearances of bordering areas, supporting the Burgess "invasion" theory. In addition, physical appearance is more likely to improve in neighborhoods proximal to the central business district. Finally, we find modest support for "tipping" and "filtering" theories of urban change.

Suggested Citation

  • Naik, Nikhil & Kominers, Scott Duke & Raskar, Ramesh & Glaeser, Edward L. & Hidalgo, Cesar A., 2015. "Do People Shape Cities, or Do Cities Shape People? THe Co-evolution of Physical, Social and Economic Change in Five Major U.S. Cities," Working Paper Series 15-061, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
  • Handle: RePEc:ecl:harjfk:15-061
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://research.hks.harvard.edu/publications/getFile.aspx?Id=1266
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Glaeser, Edward L. & Scheinkman, JoseA. & Shleifer, Andrei, 1995. "Economic growth in a cross-section of cities," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 117-143, August.
    2. Edward L. Glaeser & Matthew E. Kahn & Jordan Rappaport, 2000. "Why Do The Poor Live In Cities?," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 1891, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    3. Philip Salesses & Katja Schechtner & César A Hidalgo, 2013. "The Collaborative Image of The City: Mapping the Inequality of Urban Perception," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(7), pages 1-12, July.
    4. Schelling, Thomas C, 1969. "Models of Segregation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 59(2), pages 488-493, May.
    5. repec:hoo:wpaper:e-95-4 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Bond, Eric W. & Coulson, N. Edward, 1989. "Externalities, filtering, and neighborhood change," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 231-249, September.
    7. Margolis, Stephen E, 1982. "Depreciation of Housing: An Empirical Consideration of the Filtering Hypothesis," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 64(1), pages 90-96, February.
    8. Glaeser, Edward L. & Kahn, Matthew E. & Rappaport, Jordan, 2008. "Why do the poor live in cities The role of public transportation," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 1-24, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Do People Shape Cities, or Do Cities Shape People? THe Co-evolution of Physical, Social and Economic Change in Five Major U.S. Cities
      by maximorossi in NEP-LTV blog on 2016-10-06 00:05:27

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Galdo, Virgilio & Li, Yue & Rama, Martin, 2021. "Identifying urban areas by combining human judgment and machine learning: An application to India," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    2. Marios Kokkodis & Theodoros Lappas, 2020. "Your Hometown Matters: Popularity-Difference Bias in Online Reputation Platforms," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 31(2), pages 412-430, June.
    3. Dave Donaldson & Adam Storeygard, 2016. "The View from Above: Applications of Satellite Data in Economics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 30(4), pages 171-198, Fall.
    4. Liang, Cong & Hui, Eddie C.M. & Yip, Tsz Leung & Huang, Yaoxuan, 2020. "Private land use for public housing projects: The Influence of a Government Announcement on Housing Markets in Hong Kong," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    5. Matthew E. Kahn, 2017. "Will Climate Change Cause Enormous Social Costs for Poor Asian Cities?," Asian Development Review, MIT Press, vol. 34(2), pages 229-248, September.
    6. Edward L. Glaeser & Scott Duke Kominers & Michael Luca & Nikhil Naik, 2018. "Big Data And Big Cities: The Promises And Limitations Of Improved Measures Of Urban Life," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(1), pages 114-137, January.
    7. Nikhil Naik & Ramesh Raskar & César A. Hidalgo, 2016. "Cities Are Physical Too: Using Computer Vision to Measure the Quality and Impact of Urban Appearance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(5), pages 128-132, May.
    8. Liang, Cong & Huang, Yaoxuan & Yip, Tsz Leung & Li, Victor Jing, 2022. "Does rail transit development gentrify neighborhoods? Evidence from Hong Kong," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 354-372.
    9. Yencha, Christopher, 2019. "Valuing walkability: New evidence from computer vision methods," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 689-709.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Edlund, Lena & Machado, Cecilia & Sviatschi, Maria, 2015. "Bright Minds, Big Rent: Gentrification and the Rising Returns to Skill," IZA Discussion Papers 9502, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Edward L. Glaeser & Joshua D. Gottlieb, 2009. "The Wealth of Cities: Agglomeration Economies and Spatial Equilibrium in the United States," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(4), pages 983-1028, December.
    3. David Card & Alexandre Mas & Jesse Rothstein, 2008. "Tipping and the Dynamics of Segregation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(1), pages 177-218.
    4. Edward L. Glaeser, 1998. "Are Cities Dying?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 139-160, Spring.
    5. Duranton, Gilles & Puga, Diego, 2014. "The Growth of Cities," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 5, pages 781-853, Elsevier.
    6. Frederico Roman Ramos & Ciro Biderma, 2014. "Urban Sprawl And Spatial Segregation In São Paulo Metropolitan Region," Anais do XLI Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 41st Brazilian Economics Meeting] 172, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    7. Rajiv Sethi & Rohini Somanathan, 2004. "Inequality and Segregation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(6), pages 1296-1321, December.
    8. Gautier, Pieter A. & Zenou, Yves, 2010. "Car ownership and the labor market of ethnic minorities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(3), pages 392-403, May.
    9. Edward L. Glaeser, Jed Kolko, and Albert Saiz, 2001. "Consumer city," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 1(1), pages 27-50, January.
    10. Arthur Grimes & Chris Young, 2010. "Anticipatory Effects of Rail Upgrades: Auckland’s Western Line," Working Papers 10_11, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.
    11. McKinnish, Terra & Walsh, Randall & Kirk White, T., 2010. "Who gentrifies low-income neighborhoods?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 180-193, March.
    12. Brueckner, Jan K. & Helsley, Robert W., 2011. "Sprawl and blight," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 205-213, March.
    13. Nathaniel Baum-Snow & Byron F. Lutz, 2011. "School Desegregation, School Choice, and Changes in Residential Location Patterns by Race," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(7), pages 3019-3046, December.
    14. Ganong, Peter & Shoag, Daniel, 2012. "Why Has Regional Convergence in the U.S. Stopped?," Working Paper Series rwp12-028, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    15. Jordan Rappaport, 2005. "The shared fortunes of cities and suburbs," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, vol. 90(Q III), pages 33-60.
    16. Tolciu, Andreia, 2008. "Is unemployment a consequence of social interactions? Seeking for a common research framework for economists and other social scientists," HWWI Research Papers 1-15, Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWI).
    17. Edward L. Glaeser & Joseph Gyourko, 2005. "Urban Decline and Durable Housing," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(2), pages 345-375, April.
    18. Bayer, Patrick & Fang, Hanming & McMillan, Robert, 2014. "Separate when equal? Racial inequality and residential segregation," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 32-48.
    19. Hellerstein, Judith K. & Neumark, David & McInerney, Melissa, 2008. "Spatial mismatch or racial mismatch?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 464-479, September.
    20. Zenou, Yves, 2009. "Endogenous job destruction and job matching in cities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(3), pages 323-336, May.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C8 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs
    • R20 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - General
    • Y10 - Miscellaneous Categories - - Data: Tables and Charts - - - Data: Tables and Charts

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ecl:harjfk:15-061. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ksharus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.