Doctoral Dissertation Research in Economics and Geography: Rectangular Grids and the Urban Economy: The Causes and Consequences of Spatial Land Patterns in American Cities

这个研究项目考察了矩形街道网格的使用，这是一种划分和划分城市土地的制度，例如曼哈顿。矩形网格在世界各地的城市经济中普遍存在，并由政府和私人开发商实施。这一地理现象引起了各学科学者的兴趣，但关于城市网格的原因和后果的严谨证据却很少。当前的项目调查了导致城市采用矩形网格的决定因素，网格协调经济行为的过程，以及相对于其他系统，网格对城市土地经济价值的影响。随着美国城市在19世纪和20世纪的发展，它们主要是通过矩形网格来实现的。这些是有意识的、集中的土地划界制度，旨在促进房地产开发，划定制造业和零售业等活动的地点，并协调供水、污水处理和电力公用事业等公共物品的提供。据推测，清晰、统一的网格结构通过创建类似块和地块的网络来促进土地市场，从而降低了在土地购买过程中获取信息的成本，并增强了财产边界的确定性。电网的线性排列也有望降低沿道路安装公共基础设施的成本，并有助于协调企业的选址决策。尽管有这些好处，但电网也有缺点，因为其统一的结构忽略了对当地地理的潜在有价值的调整，而且该计划经常被批评为缺乏想象力。本研究项目通过关注1860年至1910年美国城市的街道系统，对城市土地划界所涉及的权衡进行了新颖的分析，这是一个前所未有的城市增长时期。将收集美国各城市和城市内部的房地产和街道模式的历史空间数据。使用地理信息系统软件，随后创建度量标准，以捕获城市划界系统的形状、对齐和一致性。这些指标与特定地点的城市经济成果相关，如土地价值、人口增长、交易频率、工业位置和公共产品供应；这些都是从各种各样的档案来源收集来的。一个简单的分析模型记录了网格的净收益，用来解释网格更有利的地理条件，这些条件指导了网格更有可能被采用的实证分析。在探索矩形网格对结果的因果影响时，分析侧重于网格与替代划分系统相邻的特定区域，以提供自然实验来衡量网格的经济影响。实证背景是一个急剧城市化和城市经济命运显著变化的时期，本分析确定了城市经济发展所依赖的一个关键制度平台的影响。这项研究的动机是最近关于农业土地网格的工作，并建立在越来越多的实证研究的基础上，这些研究确定了地理、制度和经济结果之间的关系。这些研究显示了地理对经济增长的直接影响，以及地理通过其制度塑造所能产生的间接影响。本研究通过指定地理和制度之间的相互关系，并使用空间科学来指定这些制度产生和塑造经济活动的机制，从而解决了这些更大的问题。

This research project examines the use of the rectangular street grids, an institution for partitioning and demarcating urban land as exemplified, for example, by Manhattan. Rectangular grids are pervasive in urban economies throughout the world and are implemented by governments and private developers alike. This geographic phenomenon has attracted interest from scholars in a variety of disciplines, yet little rigorous evidence exists on the causes and consequences of urban grids. The current project investigates the determinants that lead a city to adopt a rectangular grid, the process through which the grid coordinates economic behavior, and the effect the grid has on the economic value of urban land relative to alternative systems.As American cities grew in the 19th and 20th centuries, they did so predominantly through rectangular grids. These were conscious, centralized land demarcation systems intended to promote real estate development, delineate the location of activities such as manufacturing and retail, and coordinate the delivery of public goods, such as water, sewerage and electric utilities. It is hypothesized that the clear, uniform structure of the grid facilitates land markets by creating a network of similar blocks and lots that reduces the costs of acquiring information during land purchases and enhances the certainty of property boundaries. The linear alignment of the grid is also expected to reduce the cost of installing public infrastructure along roads and help to coordinate the location decisions of firms. Despite these benefits the grid also has drawbacks as its uniform structure ignores potentially valuable adjustments to local geography and the plan is often criticized as unimaginative.This research project presents a novel analysis of the tradeoffs involved in urban land demarcation by focusing on the street systems in US cities from 1860 to 1910, a time of unprecedented urban growth. Historical spatial data on property and street patterns across and within cities in the U.S. will be collected. Using geographical information systems software, metrics are subsequently created capture the shape, alignment, and uniformity of a city's demarcation system. These metrics are linked to urban economic outcomes at a particular location, such as land values, population growth, transaction frequency, industry location, and public goods provision; that are collected from a variety of archival sources. A simple analytical model documenting the net benefits of the grid is used to explain the geographical conditions under which the grid is more beneficial, and these conditions guide the empirical analysis as to where the grid is more likely to be adopted. When exploring the causal effects of the rectangular grid on outcomes, the analysis focuses on specific areas where grids are adjacent to alternative demarcation systems to provide a natural experiment in which to measure the economic impacts of the grid.The empirical setting is a time of dramatic urbanization and significant variation in the economic fate of cities, and this analysis identifies the effects of a key institutional platform through which urban economies developed. This research is motivated by recent work on agricultural land grids and builds on a growing number of empirical studies that identify relationships between geography, institutions, and economic outcomes. Such studies show the direct impacts of geography on economic growth as well as the indirect impacts geography can have through its shaping of institutions. This research addresses these larger issues by specifying the interrelationships between geography and institutions and uses spatial science to specify the mechanisms through which these institutions arise and shape economic activity.