This paper explores the challenges and opportunities that government officials face in designing coherent 'rules of the game' for achieving urban sustainability during times of growth. Sustainability is judged by three criteria. The first involves elements of day-to-day quality of life, such as...

This paper presents a new method for ranking city quality of life. I use data from the 1980 and the 1990 Census of Population and Housing to rank cities. My approach relaxes the standard quot;hedonicquot; method's assumptions that all city local public goods are observed and that the implicit...

More than 17 percent of households in American central cities live in poverty; in American suburbs, just 7.4 percent of households live in poverty. The income elasticity of demand for land is too low for urban poverty to be the result of wealthy individuals' wanting to live where land is cheap...

Unplanned suburban growth imposes social costs such as congestion, pollution, and open space reduction. Anti-sprawl policies are being adopted in fast growing metropolitan areas. This paper explores one potential benefit of sprawl. Sprawl increases housing affordability and this may contribute...

Vehicle emissions are falling. As the oldest vehicles in the fleet are scrapped and are replaced by cleaner vehicles, aggregate emissions decline. Given this trend, must costly used car regulation continue? The Clean Air Act of 1990 requires more stringent used car testing without considering...