The objective of this paper is to show how the same market failures that contribute to urban sprawl also contribute to urban blight. The paper develops a simple dynamic model in which new suburban and older central-city properties compete for mobile residents. The level of housing services...

This paper considers the role of developers in the formation of cities. Existing treatment of the location of economic activity between cities either ignore developers entirely (e.g. Stiglitz 1977) or endow them with limitless power (e.g., Henderson 1988). Reality lies somewhere in between; most...

Skyscrapers are urbanism in the extreme, but they have received surprisingly little direct attention in urban economics. The standard urban model emphasizes differentials in access across locations, which determine land price differentials and building heights. This explanation leaves out an...