Essays on urban amenities

这项拟议的研究旨在了解城市设施(如博物馆、酒吧、公园)如何影响个人决策(如搬迁住所以及人们愿意为搬迁支付多少费用)。要做到这一点，分析将从城市层面转向社区层面，利用关于个人居住地、流动性和周围便利设施的年度数据，专注于便利设施对个人决策的重要性。通过这样做，这认识到个人更频繁地与距离自己更近的设施互动，而不是将整个城市的设施与邻近的设施一视同仁。此外，定性技术的整合，如访谈，将被整合到分析中，希望以一种比价格函数/预算线更有意义的方式来理解个人的动机和约束。最后，结合这些经验教训，将就如何最好地吸引这些人提出政策建议，讨论设施之间的潜在优势。因此，我的目标是更详细地了解城市设施对个人在城市内/城市之间流动时的行为产生什么影响。城市经济学文献中的主要辩论认为，要么是便利设施，要么是工作驱动着个人行为。然而，由于内生性担忧和聚合空间分辨率的数据，以前的研究一直笼罩在不确定性中。通过使用较低空间聚集的纵向数据集，以及复杂的统计方法，我希望梳理出便利设施对决策的影响-无论是通过享乐模型对房价的影响，还是通过离散选择模型对住宅流动性的影响。新冠肺炎为此提供了一个绝佳的机会，因为它代表着一种自然实验的形式，在这种实验中，个人的工作可以继续，但获得便利设施和社交互动的机会大幅减少。在此期间，我希望将城市经济学文献中关于舒适设施重要的争论，扩展到便利设施对个人行为是否重要的争论。例如，对居住迁移的地理和社会学解释更多地侧重于(更定性的)生活过程角度，尽管城市经济学文献确实强调年龄/婚姻状况是分析便利设施时的重要控制变量，但对迁移的社会方面有基本的处理。因此，我的目标之一是在更传统的城市经济范式中整合对移民的其他解释(例如，重新认识“联系的生活”和“队列效应”--即按照你相似的个人行事)。我目前正在调查的这种关联生活的一个具体例子是那些反向通勤的夫妇(住在城市，但在郊区工作)，因为这可以说表明了他们对城市生活的强烈偏好。在接下来的一年里，我将把最令人信服的渠道具体化，以调查城市便利设施对个人行为的重要性。如果可能，我的目标是关注可能对一个地区的产出产生积极影响的亚群体(例如，受过高等教育的个人/专业人员)，以调查这些人是否被不同的便利设施所吸引。所有这些目标都是基于数据的可用性，这些论文的重点将是将最高质量的数据放在首位。顺便说一句，我已经联系了英国国家统计局安全研究服务，目的是确保(英国，理解社会)我使用的数据将以某种方式与开放获取数据管理计划保持一致。然而，由于这些数据在空间上的分类性质，我还不能确认这一点的具体结果--保密很重要。

The proposed research aims to understand how urban amenities (e.g. museums, bars, parks) influence individual decisionmaking (e.g. moving residence and how much people are willing to pay to move). To do this, there will be a shift in analysis from the city-scale to the neighbourhood-level, utilising yearly data on individuals' place of residence, their mobility and the surrounding amenities, to focus on the significance of amenities on individual decision-making. In doing so, this recognises that individuals interact with amenities that are closer to them more often, rather than treating city-wide amenities the same as neighbouring amenities. Additionally, integration of qualitative techniques such as interviews - which are popular in other areas of academia such as geography and sociology - will be integrated into analysis, hoping to understand the motivations and constraints on individuals in a more meaningful way than a price function/budget line. Finally, combining these lessons, there will be policy recommendations on how best to attract these individuals, discussing potential complimentarities between amenities.Thus, I aim to understand what impact urban amenities have on individuals' behaviour when moving in/between cities in more detail. The main debates in the urban economics literature argue that either amenities or jobs drive individual behaviour. Yet, studies have previously been shrouded in uncertainty due to endogeneity concerns and data at aggregated spatial resolutions. Through employing longitudinal datasets at lower spatial aggregations, alongside sophisticated statistical approaches I hope to tease out the impacts of amenities on decision making - be that on house prices through hedonic modelling, or residential mobility through discrete choice modelling. COVID-19 provides a prime opportunity for this as it represents a form of natural experiment whereby individuals' jobs could continue but access to amenities and social interaction was dramatically reduced.Within this I hope to expand the arguments within the urban economics literature, from which amenities are important, to whether amenities are important in individual behaviour. For instance, geographical and sociological explanations for residential movement focus more on a (more qualitative) life course perspective, and whilst the urban economics literature does highlight age/marital status as important control variables when analysing amenities there is rudimentary handling of the social side to migration. Thus, one of my objectives is to integrate other explanations for migration (e.g. reconising 'linked lives' and 'cohort effects' - i.e. acting in accordance with individuals you are similar to) within more traditional urban economic paradigms. A specific example of these linked lives that I am currently investigating is looking at couples that reverse commute (live in cities but work in the suburbs) as this arguably indicates a strong preference for city living. Throughout the next year I am to concretise the most convincing channels to investigate the importance of urban amenities on individual behaviour. If possible I aim to focus on sub-populations that could positively influence an area's output (e.g. highly educated individuals/professionals) to investigate whether these individuals are attracted by different amenities. All of these objectives are based on data availabilities, and the focus of these essays will be to give primacy to data that is of the highest quality. As an aside, I have contacted the ONS Secure Research Service with the objective of ensuring that the (UK, Understanding Society) data I utilise will be in some way accessible in line with the open access data management plan. Due to the spatially disaggregated nature of this data, however, I cannot confirm yet the concrete result of this yet - with confidentiality being important.