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Population Trends as a Counterweight to Central City Decline, 1950–2000

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  • Leah Boustan
  • Allison Shertzer

Abstract

The share of metropolitan residents living in central cities declined dramatically from 1950 to 2000. We argue that cities would have lost even further ground if not for demographic trends such as renewed immigration, delayed childbearing, and a decline in the share of households headed by veterans. We provide causal estimates of the effect of children on residential location using the birth of twins. The effect of veteran status is identified from a discontinuity in the probability of military service during and after the mass mobilization for World War II. Our results suggest that these changes in demographic composition were strong enough to bolster city population but not to fully counteract socioeconomic factors favoring suburban growth. Copyright Population Association of America 2013

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  • Leah Boustan & Allison Shertzer, 2013. "Population Trends as a Counterweight to Central City Decline, 1950–2000," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 50(1), pages 125-147, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:demogr:v:50:y:2013:i:1:p:125-147
    DOI: 10.1007/s13524-012-0137-5
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    4. Zezhou Wu & Danting Zhang & Shenghan Li & Jianbo Fei & Changhong Chen & Bin Tian & Maxwell Fordjour Antwi-Afari, 2022. "Visualizing and Understanding Shrinking Cities and Towns (SCT) Research: A Network Analysis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(18), pages 1-14, September.
    5. Xu, Hangtian, 2019. "The burst of the real estate bubble as a promoter of gentrification in Tokyo and Osaka, 1980–2017," MPRA Paper 96803, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Ricks, Judith S., 2021. "Mortgage subsidies, homeownership, and marriage: Effects of the VA loan program," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    7. Angelina Hackmann & Torben Klarl, 2020. "The evolution of Zipf's Law for U.S. cities," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 99(3), pages 841-852, June.
    8. Rachel S. Franklin, 2021. "The demographic burden of population loss in US cities, 2000–2010," Journal of Geographical Systems, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 209-230, April.
    9. Tan, Hui Ren, 2020. "Did military service during World War I affect the economic status of American veterans?," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    10. Jongkwan Lee, 2023. "The impact of a local human capital shock: evidence from World War II veterans," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 36(3), pages 1765-1798, July.

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