What are cities worth? : land rents, local productivity, and the capitalization of amenity values

"Estimates of local land rents and firm productivity from wage and housing-cost data should incorporate parameters from the housing production function. Across cities, differences in amenity values are capitalized into the sum of local land values and federal-tax payments. Improved modeling is used to predict how amenities affect wages and housing costs, estimate quality-of-life and firm-productivity differences across U.S. cities, and revise estimates of the value of public-infrastructure investments. Private land values vary mainly from quality-of-life differences, while social land values vary mainly from firm-productivity differences. Highly valuable cities are typically coastal, temperate, sunny, and have large or well-educated populations"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site