Consumer City

Graham Bowley writes:

Cities may also be growing because individuals as consumers want to live there. In a discussion paper titled "Consumer City," Glaeser and co-authors Jed Kolko and Albert Saiz call this "the demand for density." People now want to live in dense areas because dense areas offer what people want to consume - opera, sports teams, art museums, varied cuisine. In France, for example, he and his fellow researchers found a robust correlation between the number of restaurants and the growth of cities.

The full story is here (pointer via Wendy Waters who has a bunch of great posts over at All About Cities). 

Comments

[Charlotta]

This is one of the best papers ever written. Even though everyone tends to focus on the amenity part when referring to this paper I think it's brilliant in catching the importance of speed. The value of most other amenities tends to decrease if they aren't accessible, and this is captured so nicely.