Edward Ludwig Glaeser

A pioneering urban economist poses arguments for the city's potential for securing the world's future, challenging common perceptions to reveal why cities are actually more environmentally sound and are comprised of healthier and wealthier populations.

How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier

Triumph of the City

Michael Luca

Hyunjin Kim

We demonstrate that data from digital platforms such as Yelp have the potential to improve our understanding of gentrification, both by providing data in close to real time (i.e. nowcasting and forecasting) and by providing additional context about how the local economy is changing. Combining Yelp and Census data, we find that gentrification, as measured by changes in the educational, age, and racial composition within a ZIP code, is strongly associated with increases in the numbers of grocery stores, cafes, restaurants, and bars, with little evidence of crowd-out of other categories of businesses. We also find that changes in the local business landscape is a leading indicator of housing price changes, and that the entry of Starbucks (and coffee shops more generally) into a neighborhood predicts gentrification. Each additional Starbucks that enters a zip code is associated with a 0.5% increase in housing prices.

Using Yelp Data to Quantify Neighborhood Change

Measuring Gentrification

Data from digital platforms have the potential to improve our understanding of gentrification and enable new measures of how neighborhoods change in close to real time. Combining data on businesses from Yelp with data on gentrification from the Census, Federal Housing Finance Agency, and Streetscore (an algorithm using Google Streetview), we find that gentrifying neighborhoods tend to have growing numbers of local groceries, cafes, restaurants, and bars, with little evidence of crowd-out of other types of businesses. For example, the entry of a new coffee shop into a zip code in a given year is associated with a 0.5 percent increase in housing prices. Moreover, Yelp measures of local business activity provide leading indicators for housing price changes and help to forecast which neighborhoods are gentrifying.

Nowcasting Gentrification

Abha Joshi-Ghani

Copyright: The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank.

Towards Competitive Cities

The Urban Imperative

Alberto Alesina

In this this timely study of the different approaches of America and Europe to the problems of domestic inequality and poverty, the authors describe just how different the two continents are in the level of State engagement in the redistribution of income. They discuss various possible economic and sociological explanations for the difference, including different attitudes to the poor, notions of social responsibility, and attitudes to race.

A World of Difference

Fighting Poverty in the US and Europe

Using a series of simple models and economic theory, Glaeser illustrates the primary features of urban economics including the concepts of spatial equilibrium and agglomeration economies.

Edward Ludwig Glaeser

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