Urban Economics

Bringing urban issues into a modern microeconomic framework, this work uses basic economic analysis to explain why cities exist, where they develop, how they grow and how various activities are arranged within them. Census data is incorporated into the text, and used in charts and tables.

The material on poverty and public policy has been scrupulously rewritten, with one section on the effects of racial segregation in the central city and another chapter that explores other reasons for poverty and anti-poverty policies as well as reasons for homelessness.
The policy analysis has been updated to reflect recent changes in public policy and refinements in the economic analysis of policy alternatives.
The author has regrouped the chapters in the old Parts III and IV for a total of six parts in the book for greater logical flow.
Part I: Incorporates many insights from the new field, 'Economic Geography'; looks at predictions for telecommunications' effect on cities, includes two new case studies, explores the forces responsible for the development of large primary cities in developing countries, and incorporates agglomerative economies into the model of labor demand and supply.
Part II: Explores the effects of Pittsburgh's graded property-tax policy on urban development, contrasts the pattern of income segregation in the U.S. with the pattern in other countries, discusses suburban subcenters in the metropolitan economy, and includes new material on the development of employment subcenters.
Part III: On Poverty and housing, now emphasizes the spatial effects of poverty and the problem of poverty in central cities, includes a new section on homelessness, and discusses the welfare system overhaul and recent changes in housing policy.
The latest data on government taxes and expenditures has been added to Part IV, as has treatment of the connection between poverty and the problems of central-city government and why welfare reform will reduce welfare spending.
In Part IV, Urban Transportation, the author examines congestion pricing in the U.S. compared to other countries, new data on the costs of alternate transit systems, and the changing connection between land use and transportation.
Finally, Part VI, Education and Crime, summarizes recent evidence concerning the efficacy of the inputs of education production function, the changes in the degree of racial segregation in schools, declines in crime rates, and the effects of 'three-strike' laws.
All the tables and charts have been thoroughly updated with the most recent data. Insights and facts from current theoretical and empirical research have been added in every chapter.
URBAN ECONOMICS brings urban issues into a modern microeconomic framework. This framework appeals to many micro instructors because it closely matches their training and the way they want to teach the course.
Timely, well-presented, and thorough applications are found throughout.
This comprehensive text allows instructors the flexibility to teach different kinds of urban courses. The author provides several different course organizations in the preface to accommodate a variety of urban interest courses.
A 'Tools of Microeconomics' appendix covers essential topics from intermediate microeconomics. This helps the student who has only had exposure to micro at the introductory level.