Creative Destruction: Barriers to Urban Growth and the Great Boston Fire of 1872

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Hornbeck, Richard; Keniston, Daniel
• 署名单位: University of Chicago; National Bureau of Economic Research; Yale University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.20141707
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 1365-1398
• 关键词: SPILLOVERS EVIDENCE; SHOPPING MALLS; city growth; externalities; LAND; gentrification; dependence; geography; IMPACT

摘要

Urban growth requires the replacement of outdated buildings, yet growth may be restricted when landowners do not internalize positive spillover effects from their own reconstruction. The Boston Fire of 1872 created an opportunity for widespread simultaneous reconstruction, initiating a virtuous circle in which building upgrades encouraged further upgrades of nearby buildings. Land values increased substantially among burned plots and nearby unburned plots, capitalizing economic gains comparable to the prior value of burned buildings. Boston had grown rapidly prior to the Fire, but negative spillovers from outdated durable buildings had substantially constrained its growth by dampening reconstruction incentives.