Social Interaction and Urban Sprawl

Jan Brueckner and Ann Largey ()
Additional contact information
Ann Largey: Dublin City University Business School

No 60707, Working Papers from University of California-Irvine, Department of Economics

Abstract: Various authors, most notably Putnam (2000), have argued that low-density living reduces social capital and thus social interaction, and this argument has been used to buttress criticisms of urban sprawl. If low densities in fact reduce social interaction, then an externality arises, validating Putnam's critique. The paper tests this premise using data from the Social Capital Benchmark Survey. In the empirical work, social interaction measures for individual survey respondents are regressed on census-tract density and a host of household characteristics, using an instrumental-variable approach to control for the potential endogeneity of density.

Keywords: Urban sprawl; Social capital (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J11 R1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 28 pages
Date: 2006-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo, nep-soc and nep-ure
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

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https://www.economics.uci.edu/files/docs/workingpapers/2006-07/Brueckner-07.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Social interaction and urban sprawl (2008)
Working Paper: Social Interaction and Urban Sprawl (2006)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:irv:wpaper:060707

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