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

本研究项目探讨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，但几乎没有严格的证据存在的原因和后果的城市网格。当前的项目调查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，以及网格对城市土地相对于替代系统的经济价值的影响。随着美国城市在19世纪和20世纪的发展，他们主要通过矩形网格来实现。这些是有意识的集中土地划界制度，旨在促进真实的房地产开发，划定制造业和零售业等活动的地点，并协调供水、排污和电力设施等公共产品的提供。据推测，明确的，统一的网格结构，通过创建一个类似的块和地段的网络，降低了在土地购买过程中获取信息的成本，提高了财产边界的确定性，促进了土地市场。网格的线性排列还有望降低沿着安装公共基础设施的成本，并有助于协调公司的选址决定。尽管有这些好处，网格也有缺点，因为其统一的结构忽略了潜在的有价值的调整，当地的地理和规划往往被批评为unimaginative.This研究项目提出了一个新颖的分析，在城市土地划界的权衡，专注于在美国城市的街道系统，从1860年到1910年，前所未有的城市增长的时间。将收集美国城市之间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，随后创建度量捕获城市分界系统的形状，对齐和均匀性。这些指标与特定位置的城市经济成果相关联，例如土地价值，人口增长，交易频率，行业位置和公共产品提供;这些指标是从各种档案来源收集的。一个简单的分析模型记录的网格的净效益是用来解释的地理条件下，网格是更有益的，这些条件指导的实证分析，网格更有可能被采用。在探索矩形网格对结果的因果影响时，分析重点放在网格与其他划界系统相邻的特定区域，以提供一个自然的实验来衡量网格的经济影响。经验背景是一个急剧城市化和城市经济命运显著变化的时期，这一分析确定了城市经济得以发展的一个关键制度平台的影响。这项研究的动机是最近的工作对农业土地网格，并建立在越来越多的实证研究，确定地理，制度和经济成果之间的关系。这些研究表明，地理对经济增长的直接影响，以及地理可以通过其塑造的制度的间接影响。本研究通过具体说明地理和制度之间的相互关系来解决这些更大的问题，并使用空间科学来具体说明这些制度产生和塑造经济活动的机制。

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.