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Within‐city roads and urban growth

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  • Brandily, P.
  • Rauch, F.

Abstract

In this paper we study the role of within-city roads layout in fostering city growth. Within-city roads networks have not been studied extensively in economics although they are essential to facilitate human interactions, which are at the core of agglomeration economies. We build and compute several simple measures of roads network and construct a sample of over 1800 cities and towns from Sub-Saharan Africa. Using a simple econometric model and two instrumental variable strategies based on the history of African cities, we then estimate the causal impact of within-city roads layout on urban growth. We find that over the recent decades, cities with greater road density and road evenness in the centre grew faster.

Suggested Citation

  • Brandily, P. & Rauch, F., 2024. "Within‐city roads and urban growth," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 122580, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:122580
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    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/122580/
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    urbanisation; road layout; Sub-Saharan Africa; urban planning; Global Research Program on Spatial Development of Cities; funded by the Multi Donor Trust Fund on Sustainable Urbanization of the World Bank;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R00 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General - - - General

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