This paper provides a synthesis of the state of knowledge on the economics of skyscrapers. First, we document how vertical urban growth has gained pace over the course of the 20th century. Second, we lay out a simple theoretical model of optimal building heights in a competitive market to...

Throughout the imperial era, defensive walls surrounded Chinese cities. Although most city walls have vanished, the cities have survived. We analyze a sample of nearly 300 prefectural-level cities in China, among which about half historically had city walls. We document that cities that had...

Introduction: Unearthing a genealogy of grassroots economic development -- Section One: Utopian socialist cooperatives -- The Brotherhood of Co-operative Commonweath: modernizing infrastructure and public welfare at the dawn of the Twentieth Century -- Section Two: Rochdale cooperatives -- The...

Ruim driehonderd jaar lang was de stad Amsterdam een speler in de slavenhandel en slavernij in Oost en West. Maar welke politieke en persoonlijke rol hadden de bestuurders van de stad daar eigenlijk bij? In hoeverre beïnvloedde de slavernij de ontwikkeling van Amsterdam en zijn inwoners? Dienen...

This book seeks to deepen readers' understanding of world history by investigating urbanization and the evolution of urban systems, as well as the urban world, from the perspective of historical analysis. The theoretical framework of the approach stems directly from space-economy, and, more...

We investigate the impact of peer competition on longevity using a unique historical data set of 144 prominent music composers born in the 19th century. We approximate for peer competition measuring (a) the number or (b) the share of composers located in the same area and time, (c) the time...

The collapse of Soviet Union caused the emergency of completely new conditions in city development. Big cities faced many challenges during the transformation and every part of the city space was involved into the process. Saint-Petersburg was deeply involved into the process of transformation...

In this paper, we constructs a model with two-region, two sector and two types of workers. One type of workers has a comparative advantage in agricultural production and mobile between two regions, while the other type of workers has a comparative advantage in producing manufactured goods and...

The paper is based on the outcomes and inferences from the experiment with urban heterotopia found on the Manezhnaya square in Moscow. The main point of the experimental design (ethnomethodological in its intent) is to explore in vivo the heterotopical properties of the urban environment as the...