Working Paper: NBER ID: w26482
Authors: Marie-Pierre De Bellefon; Pierre-Philippe Combes; Gilles Duranton; Laurent Gobillon; Clément Gorin
Abstract: We develop a new dartboard methodology to delineate urban areas using detailed information about building location, which we implement using a map of all buildings in France. For each pixel, our approach compares actual building density after smoothing to counterfactual smoothed building density computed after randomly redistributing buildings. We define as urban any area with statistically significant excess building density. Within urban areas, extensions to our approach allow us to distinguish ‘core’ urban pixels and detect centres and subcentres. Finally, we develop novel one- and two-sided tests that provide a statistical basis to compare maps with different delineations, which we use to assess the robustness of our approach and to document large differences between our preferred delineation and the corresponding official one.
Keywords: Urban areas; Building density; Dartboard methodology; Urban delineation
JEL Codes: C14; R12; R14
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| building density (R21) | urban classification (R11) |
| dartboard methodology (C52) | delineation of urban areas (R11) |
| counterfactual densities (C59) | urban classification (R11) |
| building density (R21) | core urban pixels (R12) |
| building density (R21) | urban centres and subcentres (R12) |
| differences in delineation (H73) | statistical significance (C12) |