Essays on urban amenities

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.