IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v38y2001i10p1651-1671.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Efficient Urbanisation: Economic Performance and the Shape of the Metropolis

Author

Listed:
  • Robert Cervero

    (Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California at Berkeley, Hearst Field Annex, Building B 1850, Berkeley, California, 94720-1850, USA, robertc@uclink.berkeley.edu.)

Abstract

The influences of urban form and transport infrastructure on economic performance show up in several contemporary policy debates, notably 'sprawl versus compact city' and in the developing world, the future of mega-cities. This paper probes these relationships using two scales of analysis. At the macro scale, an econometric analysis using data across 47 US metropolitan areas reveals that employment densities and urban primacy are positively associated with worker productivity, suggesting the presence of agglomeration economies. Congested freeways are shown to be a consequence of strong economic performance. An intrametropolitan analysis using data on sub-districts of the San Francisco Bay Area generally reinforces the findings of the macro-scale analysis. In the Bay Area, labour productivity appears to increase with size of labour-marketshed and high accessibility between residences and firms. Higher employment density and well-functioning infrastructure also contribute positively to economic performance.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert Cervero, 2001. "Efficient Urbanisation: Economic Performance and the Shape of the Metropolis," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 38(10), pages 1651-1671, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:38:y:2001:i:10:p:1651-1671
    DOI: 10.1080/00420980120084804
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1080/00420980120084804
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00420980120084804?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ciccone, Antonio & Hall, Robert E, 1996. "Productivity and the Density of Economic Activity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(1), pages 54-70, March.
    2. Holtz-Eakin, Douglas, 1994. "Public-Sector Capital and the Productivity Puzzle," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 76(1), pages 12-21, February.
    3. Henderson, J V, 1974. "The Sizes and Types of Cities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 64(4), pages 640-656, September.
    4. Aschauer, David Alan, 1989. "Is public expenditure productive?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 177-200, March.
    5. Boarnet, Marlon G., 1997. "Infrastructure Services and the Productivity of Public Capital: The Case of Streets and Highways," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 50(1), pages 39-57, March.
    6. William Alonso, 1971. "The Economics Of Urban Size†," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(1), pages 67-83, January.
    7. Glaeser, Edward L & Hedi D. Kallal & Jose A. Scheinkman & Andrei Shleifer, 1992. "Growth in Cities," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(6), pages 1126-1152, December.
      • Edward L. Glaeser & Hedi D. Kallal & Jose A. Scheinkman & Andrei Shleifer, 1991. "Growth in Cities," NBER Working Papers 3787, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
      • Glaeser, Edward Ludwig & Kallal, Hedi D. & Scheinkman, Jose A. & Shleifer, Andrei, 1992. "Growth in Cities," Scholarly Articles 3451309, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    8. Reeitsu Kojima, 1996. "Introduction: Population Migration And Urbanization In Developing Countries," The Developing Economies, Institute of Developing Economies, vol. 34(4), pages 349-369, December.
    9. Segal, David, 1976. "Are There Returns to Scale in City Size?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 58(3), pages 339-350, August.
    10. Daron Acemoglu, 1996. "A Microfoundation for Social Increasing Returns in Human Capital Accumulation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(3), pages 779-804.
    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. Doris A. Behrens & Olivia Koland & Ulrike Leopold-Wildburger, 2018. "Why local air pollution is more than daily peaks: modelling policies in a city in order to avoid premature deaths," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 26(2), pages 265-286, June.
    2. Hachem, Caroline, 2016. "Impact of neighborhood design on energy performance and GHG emissions," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 422-434.
    3. Nazari Adli, Saeid & Donovan, Stuart, 2018. "Right to the city: Applying justice tests to public transport investments," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 56-65.
    4. Randy Bluffstone & Matt Braman & Linda Fernandez & Tom Scott & Pei‐Yi Lee, 2008. "Housing, Sprawl, And The Use Of Development Impact Fees: The Case Of The Inland Empire," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 26(3), pages 433-447, July.
    5. Sohee Lee & Tsutomu Suzuki, 2016. "A scenario approach to the evaluation of sustainable urban structure for reducing carbon dioxide emissions in Seoul," International Journal of Urban Sciences, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(1), pages 30-48, March.
    6. Jae Ik Kim & Chang Hwan Yeo & Jin-Hwi Kwon, 2014. "Spatial change in urban employment distribution in Seoul metropolitan city: clustering, dispersion and general dispersion," International Journal of Urban Sciences, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(3), pages 355-372, November.
    7. Jin Xue & Hans Jakob Walnum & Carlo Aall & Petter Næss, 2016. "Two Contrasting Scenarios for a Zero-Emission Future in a High-Consumption Society," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(1), pages 1-25, December.
    8. Haidong Yu & Yong Liu & Juanjuan Zhao & Gen Li, 2019. "Urban Total Factor Productivity: Does Urban Spatial Structure Matter in China?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-18, December.
    9. Delgado García, Juan Bautista & De Quevedo Puente, Esther, 2016. "The complex link of city reputation and city performance. Results for fsQCA analysis," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(8), pages 2830-2839.
    10. Simon Franklin, 2018. "Location, Search Costs and Youth Unemployment: Experimental Evidence from Transport Subsidies," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(614), pages 2353-2379, September.
    11. Stanley, John K., 2014. "Land use/transport integration: Starting at the right place," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 381-388.
    12. Mouratidis, Kostas & Ettema, Dick & Næss, Petter, 2019. "Urban form, travel behavior, and travel satisfaction," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 306-320.
    13. Motte, Benjamin & Aguilera, Anne & Bonin, Olivier & Nassi, Carlos D., 2016. "Commuting patterns in the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro. What differences between formal and informal jobs?," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 59-69.
    14. Keone Kelobonye & Feng Mao & Jianhong (Cecilia) Xia & Mohammad Shahidul Hasan Swapan & Gary McCarney, 2019. "The Impact of Employment Self-Sufficiency Measures on Commuting Time: Case Study of Perth, Australia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-21, March.
    15. Yexuan Gu & Brian Deal & Linda Larsen, 2018. "Geodesign Processes and Ecological Systems Thinking in a Coupled Human-Environment Context: An Integrated Framework for Landscape Architecture," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-24, September.

    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. Puga, Diego, 2008. "Agglomeration and cross-border infrastructure," EIB Papers 9/2008, European Investment Bank, Economics Department.
    2. John M. Quigley, 1998. "Urban Diversity and Economic Growth," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 127-138, Spring.
    3. Berliant, Marcus & Reed III, Robert R. & Wang, Ping, 2006. "Knowledge exchange, matching, and agglomeration," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 69-95, July.
    4. Evert Meijers & Martijn Burger & Roberto Camagni & Roberta Capello & Andrea Caragliu, 2016. "Static vs. dynamic agglomeration economies. Spatial context and structural evolution behind urban growth," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 95(1), pages 133-158, March.
    5. Federico Cingano & Fabiano Schivardi, 2004. "Identifying the Sources of Local Productivity Growth," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 2(4), pages 720-742, June.
    6. Hongjian Su & Houkai Wei & Jian Zhao, 2017. "Density effect and optimum density of the urban population in China," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(7), pages 1760-1777, May.
    7. Roberto Camagni & Roberta Capello & Andrea Caragliu, 2013. "Una o infinite dimensioni urbane ottime? Alla ricerca di una dimensione di equilibrio," SCIENZE REGIONALI, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2013(3), pages 53-88.
    8. Roberto Camagni & Roberta Capello & Andrea Caragliu, 2013. "One or infinite optimal city sizes? In search of an equilibrium size for cities," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 51(2), pages 309-341, October.
    9. Gordon H. Hanson, 2000. "Scale Economies and the Geographic Concentration of Industry," NBER Working Papers 8013, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Antonio Ciccone & Giovanni Peri & Douglas Almond, "undated". "Capital, Wages, and Growth: Theory and Evidence," Working Papers 152, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    11. Henderson, Vernon, 2000. "How urban concentration affects economic growth," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2326, The World Bank.
    12. Jordan Rappaport & Jeffrey D. Sachs, 2001. "The U.S. as a coastal nation," Research Working Paper RWP 01-11, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    13. 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.
    14. Emanuela Marrocu & Raffaele Paci & Marco Pontis, 2012. "Intangible capital and firms' productivity," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 21(2), pages 377-402, April.
    15. Marion Drut & Aurélie Mahieux, 2014. "Correcting agglomeration economies: How air pollution matters," Working Papers hal-01007019, HAL.
    16. Marcus Berliant & Chia-Ming Yu, 2015. "Locational Signaling And Agglomeration," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(5), pages 757-773, November.
    17. Michael Iacono & David Levinson, 2012. "Rural Highway Expansion and Economic Development: Impacts on Private Earnings and Employment," Working Papers 000101, University of Minnesota: Nexus Research Group.
    18. Feldman, Maryann P. & Kogler, Dieter F., 2010. "Stylized Facts in the Geography of Innovation," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 381-410, Elsevier.
    19. Zhang, Haiyang & Sonobe, Tetsushi, 2010. "An inquiry into the development of science and technology parks in China," Economics Discussion Papers 2010-26, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    20. Henry Overman & Stephen Redding & Anthony J. Venables, 2001. "The Economic Geography of Trade, Production, and Income: A Survey of Empirics," CEP Discussion Papers dp0508, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.

    More about this item

    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:sae:urbstu:v:38:y:2001:i:10:p:1651-1671. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    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.