Essays in urban and regional economics

In the first essay, I study heterogeneous impacts of a public park conversion on neighborhood change and housing prices. I examine the case of The 606, a multi-use bike trail park that was transformed from an abandoned railroad bed. I use synthetic control methods to construct a comparison area as the project site consisting of neighborhoods that had experienced similar changes before 2008, the year after funding first began to flow in. I estimate that housing prices near The 606 have changed with varying degrees between -10% and 40% across locations. The prices have increased to a greater extent in low-income neighborhoods, especially when they are located closer to higher-income neighborhoods. I find the larger effects on housing prices occur in the same places experiencing larger effects on household incomes and shares of college graduates. The result suggests that high-income households have greater values of the amenity and that housing price impacts could be increased through endogenous gentrification due to the preference for high-income neighborhoods. The second essay estimates the value of public infrastructure using a panel of rural and urban counties in the United States from 1970 to 2012. Regression estimates imply public infrastructure increases employment more in urban counties, while improving property values more in rural ones; positive effects on income are similar. Spatial equilibrium modeling suggests public capital has similar quality-of-life and productivity benefits in urban and rural areas but does more to reduce costs of providing housing in urban ones. While public investments in rural and urban counties appear to pass conventional cost-benefit tests, dollar-per-dollar they are more valuable in urban counties. The third essay investigates the impacts of freeway removal on housing prices and demographic characteristics in urban areas by examining three freeway removal cases in the California Bay Area, which were removed due to an earthquake. Using synthetic control methods, I evaluate the causal effects of freeway removal on socioeconomic outcomes, such as property values and population demographics. Key findings reveal that within the pocket area of the Cypress Freeway, housing prices increased notably, suggesting the significance of barrier removal effects after freeway removal. In the case of the Embarcadero Freeway, population growth was observed along the oceanfront, indicating the importance of unlocking oceanfront access as an amenity effect. Meanwhile, the Central Freeway neighborhood experienced a rise in the share of White residents and college graduates. The size of the pre-event estimates for several outcome variables, however, underscores the necessity of refining the synthetic control unit construction for future research to provide more robust insights.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Economics

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2023

Author dc:creator

• Kim, Heejin

Contributors dc:contributor

• Albouy, David Yves
• McMillen, Daniel
• Hong, Seung-Hyun
• Bartik, Alexander Wickman

• Housing Prices
• Synthetic Control Methods
• Infrastructure Value
• Neighborhood Change

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2023 Heejin Kim

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/120414

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F120414