Preference Tradeoffs Across Spatial Scales: Developing a Micro Level Sorting Model

This paper investigates the role of spatial scale in residential location choice. While the current residential sorting literature has largely focused on a single spatial unit, we expect that homeowners face different tradeoffs across the spatial spectrum, and that these tradeoffs interact across space in different ways to shape observed outcomes. To investigate these phenomena, we implement a nested logit discrete choice model of residential household sorting. With this model, we examine residential location choice at the school attendance boundary and residential neighborhood levels, and we find that the influence of environmental amenities on the location choice of households is complex, often having different implications depending on spatial scale.