Next train to the polycentric city: The effect of railroads on subcenter formation

Miquel-Àngel Garcia-López, Camille Hemet and Elisabet Viladecans-Marsal

No 2016/14, Working Papers from Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB)

Abstract: Recent evidence reveals that transportation’s improvements within metropolitan areas have a clear effect on population and job decentralization processes. Yet, very little has been said on how these improvements affect the spatial organization of the economic activity in the suburbs. This paper analyses the effects of transportation’s changes on employment subcenters formation. Using data from metropolitan Paris between 1968 and 2010, we first show that rail network improvements cause the expected job decentralization by attracting jobs to suburban municipalities. Our main contribution is to show that the new rail transit clearly affects the spatial organization of employment through the number and size of the employment subcenters: not only does the presence of a rail station increase the probability of a suburban municipality of belonging to a subcenter by 5 to 10 %, but a 10 % increase in municipality proximity to a suburban station is found to increase its chance to be part of a subcenter by 3 to 5 %.

Keywords: urban spatial structure; decentralization; subcenters; polycentric city; transportation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O2 R11 R12 R14 R4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 28 pages
Date: 2016
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo, nep-tre and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Next train to the polycentric city: The effect of railroads on subcenter formation (2017)
Working Paper: Next train to the polycentric city: The effect of railroads on subcenter formation (2017)
Working Paper: Next train to the polycentric city: The effect of railroads on subcenter formation (2017)
Working Paper: Next train to the polycentric city: The effect of railroads on subcenter formation (2016)
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