published_or_final_version / Urban Design / Master / Master of Urban Design

This dissertation consists of three chapters that examine the spatial distribution of economic activities. The first chapter examines how disasters as well as individuals’ expectations of what others will do affect the development of cities. The development of cities often involves the rejuvenation or replacement of existing structures. However, history, in the form of the sunk cost of existing durable structures, often serves as an impediment to urban development. In theory, by reducing the opportunity cost of waiting to rebuild to zero, disasters can eliminate these frictions and bring about higher quality structures. In addition, the simultaneous rebuilding after a disaster would allow property owners to experience stronger cross-building spillovers which would encourage further upgrades of nearby buildings. Nevertheless, these are not sufficient to guarantee higher quality buildings. This is because individuals’ investment decisions also depend on their expectations of what others will do. Therefore, in this chapter, we examine both of these issues using the 1666 Great Fire of London as a natural experiment. First, using a difference-in-differences (DiD) strategy, we show evidence that the Fire was able to free parishes within London from the constraints of their existing durable structures and move them to a new equilibrium involving higher quality structures. Second, using DiD and an IV strategy, we find that legal rulings arising from the Fire Court – a court specially set up by the English Parliament to hear rebuilding disputes – were able to anchor expectations and in so doing, helped to facilitate the development of London. Providing causal evidence that legal rulings can be a main driver in the formation of expectations is the main contribution of our paper. The second chapter examines how the quirks of history shape present-day economic outcomes. Building on Bazzi et al. (2020), I study how a particular episode of history – time at the frontier – helps to explain the present-day manufacturing production patterns across American counties. First, I show empirical evidence that there are fewer establishments and lower employment in counties that spent a longer time on the frontier. The same results hold for industries that are more “contractible” (i.e., easier to specify in contracts and hence less susceptible to holdup). Second, using a DiD strategy, I show that firms in high “contractibility” industries sort into producing at counties that spent a longer time on the frontier. I hypothesize that due to “rugged individualism”, individuals in counties that spent a longer time on the frontier are less likely to trust other people. Therefore, anything that is not “contractible” becomes harder and more costly to enforce. Consequently, only the more “contractible” industries locate in counties that spent a longer time on the frontier. The third chapter examines how land use regulations and NIMBY (“not in my back yard”) behavior affect housing prices in the UK. In the UK, developers have to apply to the local planning authority to seek development permission. Applicants who have their plans rejected can appeal to the Secretary of State, via the Planning Inspectorate. The Planning Inspectorate then assigns an inspector to decide whether to overturn the local authority’s decision. We propose a theoretical model which shows that in locations with high levels of NIMBY-ism, developers are better off getting their plans rejected by the local authority and gambling on drawing an inspector who is less sympathetic towards locals’ NIMBY behavior. Our empirical strategy exploits the fact that inspectors are quasi-randomly assigned to the appeals. This allows us to use inspector leniency as an instrument for whether an appeal is successful. We find that overturning the local authority’s decision does not lead to a large fall in housing prices. For some projects, the impact may in fact be positive because they also add to local amenities such as retail shops. This suggests a prevalence of NIMBY-ism, as locals pressure authorities to reject even relatively benign projects.

Despite being governed by several laws aimed at preventing racial inequality in access to housing and credit resources, the mortgage lending market remains a contributor to racial and place-based disparities in homeownership rates, wealth, and access to high-quality community resources. Scholarship has identified persistent disparities in mortgage loan approval rates and subprime lending between white borrowers and those from other racial and ethnic groups, and between white neighborhoods and neighborhoods with high levels of non-white residents. Against this backdrop, the mortgage lending industry is undergoing rapid, technology-driven changes in risk assessment and application processing. Traditional borrower risk-assessment methods including face-to-face discussions between lenders and applicants and the prominent use of FICO credit scores have been replaced or supplemented by automated decision-making tools at a new generation of institutions known as fintech lenders. Little is known about the relationship between lenders using these new tools and the racial and spatial disparities that have long defined the wider mortgage market. Given the well-documented history of discrimination in lending along with findings of technology-driven racial inequality in other economic sectors, fintech lending’s potential for racial discrimination warrants increased scrutiny. This dissertation compares the lending outcomes of traditional and fintech mortgage lenders in the United States depending on applicant and neighborhood racial characteristics. Using data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, an original dataset classifying lenders as fintech or traditional, and an array of complimentary administrative data sources, it provides an assessment of the salience of race and place in the rates at which mortgage loans from each lender type are approved and assigned subprime terms. Results from a series of regression-based quantitative analyses suggest fintech mortgage lenders, like traditional mortgage lenders, approve and deny loans and distribute subprime credit at disparate rates to white borrowers and neighborhoods relative to nonwhite borrowers and neighborhoods. Findings suggest that policymakers and regulators must increase their oversight of fintech lenders, ensuring that further advances in lending technology do not concretize longstanding racial and spatial disparities.

Public authorities supplement routine government functions by building infrastructure, maintaining bridges, building stadiums and convention centers, managing public housing, and running mass transit systems. These special purpose governments are a fixture of urban development and service delivery. Drawing on a framework informed by theories of public authorities and intergovernmental politics, this study examines how statewide public authorities interact with localities and what the implications are for intergovernmental politics and local democratic planning. This research focuses on a state public authority in New York State responsible for economic development: the Empire State Development Corporation. Through archival analysis, interviews, legislative review, and document and project analysis, I show that when a public authority carries out economic development, it can facilitate local economic development planning by overcoming local political inertia, or it can hinder a locality’s planning efforts by substituting statewide economic development interests for local interests. In both cases, there is a negative effect on local democratic processes. By overriding local laws, acting in isolation from the public and the legislature, and allowing the businesses community special access to the public authority, the public authority subverts deliberative and inclusive democratic processes. This study concludes by suggesting ways that public authorities can take up democratic planning principles.

As cities across the United States grapple with soaring housing costs, planners and policymakers have argued that upzonings are key to addressing rising housing unaffordability. Upzonings, or alterations to municipal zoning regulations allowing for increased development capacity, are expected to spur additional housing production, relieve housing demand, lower housing costs, and ultimately improve racial and economic integration. Although cities and states have started to consider upzonings as part of official housing policy agendas, minimal research to date has explored the factors that could alternately further or frustrate upzoning’s objectives of improving housing affordability and racial and economic segregation. Seeking to fill part of this gap in the literature, this dissertation explores how upzoning unfolds in three different contexts (Austin, TX; Newton, MA; and New York, NY), exploring how local context shapes the extent to which upzoning will reach these objectives. The first essay, “How do upzonings impact neighborhood demographic change? Examining the link between land use policy and gentrification in New York City,” investigates how upzonings relate to neighborhood racial change in New York City. The second essay, “How does real estate investor ownership mediate accessory dwelling unit (ADU) asking rents? Evidence from Austin, TX” explores how the involvement of differently situated actors in the real estate market impacts the affordability of accessory dwelling units. The third essay, “Upzoning and the homevoter hypothesis: Evidence from Massachusetts,” examines the extent to which incumbent homeowners will seek to capitalize on upzoning-induced financial gains and take advantage of a proposed jurisdiction-wide upzoning. Collectively, findings from this dissertation indicate that whether upzoning will be successful (i.e., whether it will deliver its promised benefits of improved housing affordability and reduced racial and economic segregation) likely will hinge on prevailing real estate market conditions, as well as differentiated market responses to upzoning from different actors in the real estate industry. These findings are relevant to planners and policymakers because they indicate that upzoning may not unfold similarly in all contexts, but rather that real estate market conditions and uneven market responses to upzoning will shape the extent to which upzoning delivers its expected benefits.

Cities, as epicenters of resource consumption and waste production, play a crucial role in spearheading the transition towards a circular economy, where waste is minimized and the lifecycle of resources is maximized. Fashion industry activities, in particular, are predominantly concentrated in the urban context, from design activities to consumption and disposal. Given their role as centers of entrepreneurship and innovation, what opportunities and challenges do cities present in facilitating an industrial paradigm shift towards circularity in the fashion industry? How do entrepreneurial actors and supportive intermediaries pave the way toward a circular system? This dissertation examines the processes of entrepreneurship and the dynamics of learning that propel the fashion industry toward a circular economy, or circular fashion. It brings together literature on circular economy businesses and entrepreneurship with economic geography insights into the localized processes of innovation and entrepreneurship within cultural and creative industries. The three papers presented contribute to the expanding field of research and practice in the circular economy and circular fashion by underscoring the significance of proximity relations, entrepreneurial initiatives, and the dynamics of knowledge intermediation. Through a systematic literature review and a case study of New York City’s fashion industry, the three papers cultivate a nuanced understanding on the micro-dynamics of circular fashion entrepreneurship and relational processes that accompany the transition towards circular fashion. They highlight the importance of the interplay between geographical and non-geographical proximities, place-based entrepreneurial initiatives, and knowledge coordination efforts, offering a comprehensive view of the circular fashion landscape and policy implications.

published_or_final_version / Urban Design / Master / Master of Urban Design

published_or_final_version / Urban Design / Master / Master of Urban Design

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, New York City (NYC) emerged as a global epicentre, revealing stark disparities in its impact across diverse neighbourhoods and populations. This dissertation delves into the uneven geographies of the pandemic city, critically examining the paradoxes, linkages, and questions embedded in the infrastructures that shape and are shaped by the politics of the city. As modern life becomes increasingly intertwined with complex digital control systems, these infrastructures, far from being rational, orderly or even intelligible, obscure systems of power that govern their stable flow and circulation. Drawing on Stephen Graham’s concept of infrastructural “disruption”, this research sheds light on how everyday infrastructures—often invisible until they fail—reveal intricate tensions between distance and access, between participation and criminalisation, and between mobility and class. Through a multi-scaled empirical analysis, this research delves deeper into the topological and topographical characteristics of urban infrastructure during a time of crisis to illuminate their role in mediating relationships between citizens, space and justice in our everyday lives. This dissertation is anchored around three categories of spatial unevenness: geographies of access, geographies of digital participation, and geographies of work. Three infrastructural modalities are interrogated during the COVID-19 moment in NYC: the built environment, a digital governance platform, and the personal mobile phone. The study seeks to answer pivotal questions regarding access to critical pandemic response infrastructure, patterns of civic participation in NYC’s 311 non-emergency hotline, and the spatial politics of remote work behaviour. Ultimately, by unmasking the intricate web of infrastructural politics, this research offers an in-depth understanding of the disproportionate impacts of the COVID-19 spread and emphasises the significance of spatial considerations in our theorisations of justice.

The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act contained the largest federal initiative for place-based investment in over half a century. Opportunity Zones (“OZs”) are expected to cost the US government over $15 billion in forgone tax revenue through 2026, exceeding both the Clinton Era Empowerment Zones and the Great Society programs of Lyndon Johnson. Have OZs increased neighborhood investment and, if so, what types of projects and neighborhoods have benefitted? This dissertation presents three baseline evaluations of OZ. The first essay discusses the findings from 76 interviews with community and government officials, program managers, developers, businesses, and fund managers about OZ outcomes in West Baltimore. The second essay uses a difference-in-differences (DID) event study framework, an adjusted interrupted time series analysis, and census tract matching techniques to compare small business and residential lending outcomes in OZs with areas that were eligible but not designated. The final essay combines an online search for OZ supported affordable housing projects, a DID design that examines Low-Income Housing Tax Credit outcomes, and 16 interviews with community development experts to evaluate whether and how OZ is having an impact on affordable housing production. These three analyses show that OZ is a missed opportunity. OZ is stimulating investment conversations and local government capacity, but it is failing at oversight and community engagement and not changing outcomes for distressed community development or affordable housing. OZ is failing because it provides weak incentives for capital gains investors seeking market rate returns, because it does not support investors and developers already active in distressed neighborhoods, and because of several related design flaws that inhibit mission driven development. The essays propose specific policy changes necessary for OZ to encourage investment in highly distressed neighborhoods and to support affordable housing production.