IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/105054.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Building the city: from slums to a modern metropolis

Author

Listed:
  • Henderson, J. Vernon
  • Regan, Tanner
  • Venables, Anthony J.

Abstract

We model the building of a city, estimate parameters of the model, and calculate welfare losses from institutional frictions encountered in changing land-use. We distinguish formal and slum construction technologies; in contrast to slums, formal structures can be built tall, are durable, and nonmalleable. As the city grows areas are initially developed informally, then formally, and then redeveloped periodically. Slums are modelled as a technology choice; however, institutional frictions in land markets may hinder their conversion to formal usage that requires secure property rights. Using unique data on Nairobi for 2003 and 2015, we develop a novel set of facts that support assumptions of the model, estimate all parameters of the model, and calculate welfare losses of conversion frictions. We track the dynamic evolution of the city and compare it with model predictions. In the core city formal sector, about a third of buildings were torn down over 12 years and replaced by buildings on average three times higher. For slums in older areas near the centre, even after buying out slumlords, overcoming institutional frictions would yield gains amounting to about $18,000 per slum household, 30 times typical annual slum rent payments.

Suggested Citation

  • Henderson, J. Vernon & Regan, Tanner & Venables, Anthony J., 2020. "Building the city: from slums to a modern metropolis," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 105054, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
  • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:105054
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/105054/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Edward Glaeser & Wei Huang & Yueran Ma & Andrei Shleifer, 2017. "A Real Estate Boom with Chinese Characteristics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 31(1), pages 93-116, Winter.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Jason Barr & Remi Jedwab, 2023. "Exciting, boring, and nonexistent skylines: Vertical building gaps in global perspective," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 51(6), pages 1512-1546, November.
    2. Alves, Guillermo, 2021. "Slum growth in Brazilian cities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    3. Henderson, J. Vernon & Liu, Vivian, 2023. "Urban land markets and city development: Sub-Saharan Africa," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 119388, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Letrouit, Lucie & Selod, Harris, 2024. "Informal land markets and ethnic kinship in West African cities," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    5. Guedes, Ricardo & Iachan, Felipe S. & Sant’Anna, Marcelo, 2023. "Housing supply in the presence of informality," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    6. Rivera-Padilla, Alberto, 2021. "Slums, allocation of talent, and barriers to urbanization," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    7. Per G. Fredriksson & Satyendra Kumar Gupta & Weihua Zhao & Jim R. Wollscheid, 2023. "Legal heritage and urban slums," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(1), pages 236-252, January.
    8. Daniel Straulino & Juan C. Saldarriaga & Jairo A. G'omez & Juan C. Duque & Neave O'Clery, 2021. "Uncovering commercial activity in informal cities," Papers 2104.04545, arXiv.org.
    9. Rafael Pucci, 2024. "To Burn a Slum: Urban Land Conflicts and the Use of Arson against Favelas," Working Papers, Department of Economics 2024_13, University of São Paulo (FEA-USP).
    10. Basso, Leonardo J. & Navarro, Matias & Silva, Hugo E., 2021. "Public transport and urban structure," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 28(C).
    11. Lucie Letrouit & Harris Selod, 2024. "Informal land markets and ethnic kinship in West African cities [Marchés fonciers informels et cousinage ethnique dans les villes d'Afrique de l'Ouest]," Post-Print hal-04525074, HAL.
    12. Estrin, Saul & Hu, Yuan & Shapiro, Daniel & Zhang, Peng, 2024. "Agglomeration costs limit sustainable innovation in cities in developing economies," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 125983, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    13. Fetzer, Thiemo, 2023. "Regulatory barriers to climate action : Evidence from Conservation Areas in England," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1451, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    14. Barzin,Samira & Avner,Paolo & Maruyama Rentschler,Jun Erik & O’Clery,Neave, 2022. "Where Are All the Jobs ? A Machine Learning Approach for High Resolution Urban Employment Prediction inDeveloping Countries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9979, The World Bank.
    15. Lin, Yatang & McDermott, Thomas K.J. & Michaels, Guy, 2024. "Cities and the sea level," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    16. Manara, Martina & Regan, Tanner, 2020. "Eliciting demand for title deeds: lab-in-the-field evidence from urban Tanzania," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 107538, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    17. Henderson, J. Vernon & Thisse, Jacques-François, 2024. "Urban and spatial economics after 50 years," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 125675, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    18. Ali, Daniel Ayalew & Deininger, Klaus, 2024. "Using registry data to assess gender-differentiated land and credit market effects of urban land policy reform: Evidence from Lesotho," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 175(C).

    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. Shi, Yining, 2022. "Financial liberalization and house prices: Evidence from China," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    2. Tsai, I-Chun & Chiang, Shu-Hen, 2019. "Exuberance and spillovers in housing markets: Evidence from first- and second-tier cities in China," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 75-86.
    3. Qiming Wang & Tao Zhang & Xinyue He & Rongfeng Jiang, 2017. "Assessment of Phosphorus Recovery from Swine Wastewater in Beijing, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(10), pages 1-14, October.
    4. Yongheng Deng & Eric Girardin & Roselyne Joyeux & Shuping Shi, 2017. "Did bubbles migrate from the stock to the housing market in China between 2005 and 2010?," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(3), pages 276-292, August.
    5. Waxman, Andrew & Liang, Yuanning & Li, Shanjun & Barwick, Panle Jia & Zhao, Meng, 2020. "Tightening belts to buy a home: Consumption responses to rising housing prices in urban China," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    6. Yongsheng Jiang & Dong Zhao & Andrew Sanderford & Jing Du, 2018. "Effects of Bank Lending on Urban Housing Prices for Sustainable Development: A Panel Analysis of Chinese Cities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-16, February.
    7. Ding, Haoyuan & Ni, Bei & Xue, Chang & Zhang, Xiaoyu, 2022. "Land holdings and outward foreign direct investment: Evidence from China," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    8. Niu, Geng & Zhou, Yang & Gan, Hongwu, 2020. "Financial literacy and retirement preparation in China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    9. Liao, Jingchi & Peng, Cameron & Zhu, Ning, 2021. "Extrapolative bubbles and trading volume," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 118887, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    10. Chang Liu & Wei Xiong, 2018. "China's Real Estate Market," NBER Working Papers 25297, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Cheng, Dong & Tan, Yong & Yu, Jian, 2017. "Credit Rationing and Firm Exports: Micro Evidence from SMEs in China," MPRA Paper 81914, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Bo Huang & Haitong Li & Jinghua Lei & Yiqian Wang, 2024. "Free land, heavy burden: Industrial land administrative allocation and local fiscal imbalance in China," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(1), pages 312-333, March.
    13. Rose Neng Lai & Robert Van Order, 2019. "Shadow Banking and the Property Market in China," International Real Estate Review, Asian Real Estate Society, vol. 22(3), pages 361-399.
    14. Barnett, William A. & Hu, Mingzhi & Wang, Xue, 2019. "Does the utilization of information communication technology promote entrepreneurship: Evidence from rural China," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 12-21.
    15. Zhou, Yang & Li, Xunhuan & Liu, Yansui, 2020. "Rural land system reforms in China: History, issues, measures and prospects," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    16. Timothy J. Goodspeed & Jiakai Zhang, 2024. "Local fiscal competition and deficits in China," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 31(6), pages 1534-1549, December.
    17. Allen, Franklin & Qian, Jun & Qian, Meijun, 2018. "A Review of China’s Institutions," CEPR Discussion Papers 13269, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Leonardo Gambacorta & Yiping Huang & Zhenhua Li & Han Qiu & Shu Chen, 2023. "Data versus Collateral," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 27(2), pages 369-398.
    19. Bosker, Maarten & Deichmann, Uwe & Roberts, Mark, 2018. "Hukou and highways the impact of China's spatial development policies on urbanization and regional inequality," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 91-109.
    20. Shu-gang Li & Hai-qing Shuang & Hong-sheng Wang & Ki-Il Song & Lang Liu, 2017. "Extraction of Pressurized Gas in Low Air-Conductivity Coal Seam Using Drainage Roadway," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-11, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    city; urban growth; slums; urban structure; urban form; housing investment; capital durability;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O14 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Industrialization; Manufacturing and Service Industries; Choice of Technology
    • O18 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure

    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:ehl:lserod:105054. 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: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.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.