Working Paper: NBER ID: w7636
Authors: Edward L. Glaeser; Matthew E. Kahn; Jordan Rappaport
Abstract: More than 17 percent of households in American central cities live in poverty; in American suburbs, just 7.4 percent of households live in poverty. The income elasticity of demand for land is too low for urban poverty to be the result of wealthy individuals' wanting to live where land is cheap (the traditional urban economics explanation of urban poverty). Instead, the urbanization of poverty appears to be the result of better access to public transportation in central cities, and central city governments favoring the poor (relative to suburban governments).
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Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| better access to public transportation in central cities (R48) | urbanization of poverty (R23) |
| proximity to public transport (R53) | higher concentrations of poverty in urban areas (R11) |
| public transportation is more accessible to the poor (R48) | urbanization of poverty (R23) |
| government policies in central cities are more redistributive (R28) | more likely for the poor to reside in subsidized public housing (R28) |
| government policies in central cities are more redistributive (R28) | receive government income transfers compared to those in suburbs (H53) |
| urban social problems exacerbate segregation of rich and poor (R28) | concentration of poverty (I32) |
| initial attraction of the poor to cities (R23) | influenced by transportation access and government policies (R48) |