At the end of the U.S Civil War, veterans had to choose whether to return to their prewar communities or move to new areas. The late 19th Century was a time of sharp urban growth as workers sought out the economic opportunities offered by cities. By estimating discrete choice migration models, we quantify the tradeoffs that veterans faced. Veterans were less likely to move far from their origin and avoided urban immigrant areas and high mortality risk areas. They also avoided areas that opposed the Civil War. Veterans were more likely to move to a neighborhood or a county where men from their same war company lived. This co-location evidence highlights the existence of persistent social networks. Such social networks had long-term consequences: veterans living close to war time friends enjoyed a longer life.

This paper surveys economic research on the association between economic development and urban areas, links this summary to some important trends in economic outcomes in Appalachia in recent decades, highlights areas in need of future research on the role of urban areas as engines of economic development in Appalachia, and discusses what types of place-based policies might be effective to promote economic growth and development in the Appalachian region.

Congestion, pollution, and crime represent three important factors that discourage urban agglomeration. This chapter examines how the population elasticity of producing local public bads such as crime, pollution, and commute times has changed over time and how it varies across U.S. census regions. It shows significant geographical variation in the relationship between ambient air pollution and population size, and between crime and population size, using a production function approach to estimate how city size is associated with local public bads at different points in time and across U.S. regions. The results complement a recently revealed preference literature that has used cross-city hedonic approaches to infer city quality of life. A hedonic approach that solely focuses on conducting a separable decomposition by teasing out each of these effects individually is likely to underestimate the overall impact of these factors on urban quality of life. The net effect of crime and pollution reductions is stronger cities. This reduction in the cost of “city bigness” means that cities can grow and enjoy the beneficial effects of agglomeration.

Over 25 billion dollars were spent between 1970 and 2000 in 14 major cities in the United States on the construction of new rail transit lines. This massive investment in rail transit construction and expansion allows me to study the consequences of local public goods improvements for communities nearby new stations. This article uses a 14-city census tract–level panel data set covering the years 1970 to 2000 to document significant heterogeneity in the effects of rail transit expansions across the 14 cities. Communities receiving increased access to new “Walk and Ride” stations experience greater gentrification than communities that are now close to new “Park and Ride” stations.

This book is based on a conference entitled "Regional Public Goods and Regional Development Assistance", held in Washington, D.C. on November 6-7, 2002. It examines how the IDB and the ADB support the provision of regional public goods (RPGs) in Latin America and Asia, respectively. RPGs are products, services, regulatory systems or policy regimes that generate shared benefits for participating countries in such areas as health, education, trade, and infrastructure.

This paper provides an overview of the mushrooming economics literature on how community attributes influence the level of civic engagement. Since 1997, at least fifteeen empirical papers have investigated the consequences of heterogeneity for social capital. Social capital has been measured using indicators of group participation such as volunteer activity, organizational membership and activity, entertaining and visiting friends and relatives, and voting and indicators of the strength of network ties such as trust. These papers cover different nations, different social capital measures, and even different centuries. But a common theme emerges across these fifteen studies. More homogeneous communities foster greater levels of social capital production. We provide an overview of this literature and then focus on synthesizing our past work on volunteering and membership with new findings on trust and voting.