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Title: Three Essays in Urban Economics
Citation Type: Dissertation/Thesis
Publication Year: 2024
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Abstract: In my first chapter, I study the effect of the expansion of the streetcar network on suburbanization and socioeconomic dynamics of neighborhoods. My novel data work involves georeferencing historical streetcar maps of Chicago for three decadal years- 1900,1910 and 1920. To study the streetcar impact on changes in a neighborhood over time, I divide the city into consistent hexagons and study the changes within each hexagon. Using different empirical methodologies such as two-way fixed effects and first differences including an instrumental variable, I find that streetcars played a significant role in shaping suburbanization. I find that streetcars played a significant role in city expansion, with population increasing in the suburbs particularly near streetcar lines, away from the city center. Results indicate that due to streetcar expansion, the rich moved away from the city center but settled near streetcars, while the poor clustered in the city center and near the public transit network. In my second chapter, co-authored with my advisor, Professor David Cuberes, we explore the streetcar network for the city of Boston. We study the impact of the streetcar network on housing prices in the late 19th century. Using a novel data approach along with georeferencing the streetcar network of Boston, we collect data on housing prices and their characteristics from newspaper advertisements during that time. We find that housing prices are cheaper the farther we move from the city center and the rich prefer to live far from the city center but near streetcars, similar to the results of my first chapter. My third paper explores a rich new global dataset of over 2.2 million notable people born between 3500 BC to 2018 AD. I focus on the persistence of concentration of famous artists over time during the Renaissance and Early Modern Period in Europe between 13th to 18th century. Using a panel data of several European cities, I use two-way fixed effects estimation and find the significant presence of persistence in agglomeration of artists within a city over time, confirming the importance of urban networks.
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Authors: Hisam, Kulsoom
Institution: Clark University
Department: Economics
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Pages: 1-102
Data Collections: IPUMS USA - Ancestry Full Count Data
Topics: Land Use/Urban Organization, Population Mobility and Spatial Demography
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