Essays on urban amenities

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（如搬家和人们愿意为搬家支付多少钱）。要做到这一点，分析将从城市规模转移到社区层面，利用个人居住地、流动性和周围设施的年度数据，重点关注设施对个人决策的重要性。在这样做的过程中，它认识到个人更经常地与离他们更近的设施互动，而不是将整个城市的设施视为邻近的设施。此外，在地理和社会学等其他学术领域流行的访谈等定性技术的整合将被整合到分析中，希望以比价格函数/预算线更有意义的方式了解个人的动机和约束。最后，结合这些经验教训，将有关于如何最好地吸引这些人的政策建议，讨论设施之间潜在的互补性。因此，我的目标是更详细地了解城市便利设施对在城市内/城市间移动的个人行为的影响。城市经济学文献中的主要争论是，便利设施或工作驱动个人行为。然而，由于内生性问题和汇总空间分辨率的数据，以前的研究一直笼罩在不确定性中。通过采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。COVID-19为此提供了一个绝佳的机会，因为它代表了一种自然实验形式，个人的工作可以继续，但设施和社交互动的机会大大减少。在这篇文章中，我希望扩展城市经济学文献中的争论，从便利设施是重要的，到便利设施对个人行为是否重要。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）生命历程视角，而城市经济学文献在分析便利设施时确实强调年龄/婚姻状况是重要的控制变量，但对迁移的社会方面却有初步的处理。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，认识到“联系生活”和“队列效应”——即根据与你相似的个人行事）。我目前正在调查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），因为这表明他们对城市生活有强烈的偏好。在接下来的一年里，我将具体化最具说服力的渠道，以调查城市设施对个人行为的重要性。如果可能的话，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人群（例如受过高等教育的个人/专业人士），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，这些文章的重点将是给予最高质量的数据。顺便说一句，我已经联系了国家统计局安全研究服务，目的是确保我使用的（英国，理解社会）数据在某种程度上符合开放获取数据管理计划。然而，由于这些数据在空间上是分散的，我还不能确认具体的结果——保密是很重要的。

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.