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on Urban Economics and Policy |
| By: | Barbour, Elisa PhD; Gordon-Feierabend, Lev; Kaeppelin, , Francoi |
| Abstract: | This report considers motivations, obstacles, and policies and programs adopted at the state, regional, and local levels in California to support transit-oriented development (TOD). Regulatory policies adopted by the state in recent years to induce TOD are discussed, as well as state-led and regionally-managed funding programs. Findings are presented from two on-line surveys of local planning directors, and 51 interviews with regional and local planners. The findings point to multiple obstacles to achieving TOD, including market factors, resident opposition, and lack of sufficient funding for implementation, such as for necessary infrastructure to support new development. The most commonly adopted local policies to support TOD include streamlining of environmental review requirements, mixed-use zoning and upzoning (permitting higher densities), improving bike and pedestrian facilities, development of Specific Plans for neighborhoods, and mechanisms to ease accessory dwelling units (ADUs). The survey findings indicate that policies and programs initiated from multiple levels of government are deemed effective for inducing TOD. A recent one-off TOD-supportive funding program that was managed regionally, called the Regional Earley Action Program (REAP), is found to be rated as very valuable both by regional and local planners, leading to the recommendation that this program be instated on an ongoing basis with dedicated funding. The report also concludes that policies deemed effective for inducing TOD, especially funding affordable housing and addressing the nexus of zoning, CEQA streamlining for infill, permit streamlining through ministerial review, and support for Specific Plans, should continue to receive policy support from the state legislature and regional agencies. |
| Keywords: | Social and Behavioral Sciences, Transit oriented development, Policy analysis, Regulation, Zoning, Housing, Regional planning |
| Date: | 2026–03–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:itsdav:qt83s189q9 |
| By: | Seoyoung Kwon; Jongkwan Lee; Joan Monràs |
| Abstract: | High-skilled migration programs exist around the world in the hope that immigrants complement native workers, allow firms to grow, and boost innovation. We study the effect of one such program by exploiting the 2016 extension of the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program, which significantly prolonged the work authorization period for international STEM graduates. Using a synthetic difference-in-differences approach, we find that the policy successfully increased the local supply of high-skilled immigrants in exposed Commuting Zones. This local inflow stimulated firm creation and the demand for native high-skilled workers. The program might have also boosted innovation in certain sectors and startup investment, especially in Commuting Zones hosting top-ranked universities, where, overall, the effects tend to be larger. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, labor demand, firm dynamics, high-skilled migration |
| JEL: | F22 J31 J61 R11 |
| Date: | 2026–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:upf:upfgen:1940 |
| By: | Vera Chiodi (Sorbonne University Paris); Bruno Crépon (CREST-ENSAE); Guillermo Cruces (Universidad de San Andrés, CONICET, and University of Nottingham) |
| Abstract: | Housing conditions, residential location, and employment are key determinants of individual welfare, particularly for vulnerable populations facing credit constraints and information frictions. We examine how housing assistance affects employment outcomes using a randomized controlled trial in France that provided vulnerable youth (aged 18–25) with both job search assistance and housing support, including rent guarantees. The program successfully improved housing conditions: beneficiaries experienced better accommodation stability, reduced precarious situations, and increased satisfaction with their housing. However, despite substantial social worker support, the program did not improve employment rates, contract types, or earnings. Strikingly, beneficiaries moved to neighborhoods with objectively worse employment opportunities and lower socioeconomic indicators, yet reported higher satisfaction with their residential areas. This apparent paradox reveals that beneficiaries appear to prioritize housing affordability and conditions over employment access. Our results suggest that successful interventions may need to explicitly balance housing improvements with maintaining access to employment opportunities. |
| JEL: | J8 J60 O18 R23 |
| Date: | 2026–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sad:wpaper:180 |
| By: | Jesse Rothstein; Ini Umosen; Christopher R. Walters |
| Abstract: | We study the prospects for changes in school priorities to reduce income segregation in a context of centralized school assignment, accounting for behavioral responses to school offers. Promoting integration is a central objective for large urban school districts in the US, and reforms to school assignment priorities are a prominent means of pursuing this goal. Such efforts may be constrained by students' decisions to exit the public school system in response to less-preferred school offers. Using data on kindergarten applicants to the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD), we show that offers of spots at first-choice schools boost the likelihood that applicants remain in OUSD. Nevertheless, simulations show that policy reforms giving priority for low-income students at high-income schools can substantially reduce segregation with minimal impacts on retention in the district. |
| JEL: | I21 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34957 |
| By: | Christopher Severen |
| Abstract: | I describe the use of quantitative spatial models (QSMs) to evaluate the effects of transportation infrastructure within cities. After discussing the motivation for QSMs relative to other economic measurement techniques, I develop a simple QSM and detail the components that enter into the model. Next, I consider identification challenges and practical implementation. Finally, I highlight several shortcomings common in applications of QSMs, as well as growth areas where QSMs show promise for future development. |
| Keywords: | quantitative spatial models; transportation infrastructure; transit; urban economics |
| JEL: | R40 R41 O18 |
| Date: | 2026–03–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedpwp:102896 |
| By: | William W. Olney (Williams College); Owen Thompson (Williams College); ; |
| Abstract: | "Internal migration in the United States has declined substantially over the past several decades, which has important implications for individual welfare and macroeconomic adjustment. This paper studies the determinants of internal migration and how they have changed over time. We use administrative data from the IRS covering the universe of bilateral moves between every Commuting Zone (CZ) in the country over a 23 year period. This data is linked to information on local wage levels and home prices, and we estimate bilateral migration determinants in rich regression specifications that contain CZ-pair fixed effects. Consistent with theoretical predictions, we find that migration is decreasing with origin wages and destination home prices, and is increasing with destination wages and origin home prices. We then examine the contributions of earnings and home prices to the noted overall decline in internal migration. These analyses show that wages on their own would have led to an increase in migration rates, primarily because migrants are increasingly responsive to high earnings levels in potential destination CZs. However, these wage effects have been more than offset by housing related factors, which have increasingly impeded internal mobility. In particular, migration has become much less responsive to housing prices in the origin CZ, such that many households that would have left in response to high home prices several decades ago now choose to stay. " |
| Keywords: | Internal Migration, Wages, Housing Prices, Mobility |
| JEL: | R23 J31 |
| Date: | 2025–08–27 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wil:wileco:2025_116 |
| By: | Atila Abdulkadiroglu; Parag A. Pathak; Christopher R. Walters |
| Abstract: | We examine two approaches to improving urban school systems: changing who gets to go to existing schools (reallocation) and restructuring school portfolios through closures and reconstitution (resource augmentation). Using data from New York City high schools, we estimate models of school effects allowing for both vertical school quality differences and horizontal student-specific match effects. While sophisticated reallocation policies that optimize student-school matches can generate modest educational gains, they are constrained by limited seats at highly effective schools. Simple resource-augmentation policies targeting replacement of low-performing schools achieve comparable improvements with less systemic disruption. Analysis of NYC's school closures reveals that basic graduation rate metrics effectively identify struggling schools, suggesting complex value-added models may be unnecessary for targeting closure decisions. Our findings indicate that capacity constraints, rather than poor school matching, primarily drive educational inequality. |
| JEL: | I21 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34936 |
| By: | Nordberg, Sawyer |
| Abstract: | A lack of government regulation over institutional interests has contributed to New York City’s rising economic inequality by depleting the assets of low-income residents and oftentimes indirectly transferring those assets to the rich, who oversee these institutional interests. Since 1980, economic disparities have widened across the U.S., while the gap in New York City has cratered into a ravine. The predominant reason for this growing wealth polarization is the city’s heavy concentration in the finance sector alongside loose financial regulation from the government. Previous research has primarily focused on economic divides in New York City relating to wage inequality and has thus been unable to uncover the impacts of this wage divide on the average New York City resident. This study uses a difference-in-differences analysis to focus on the city’s wealth divide, the government-sponsored factors that have led to its exacerbation, and the impacts it has had on the city’s real estate and healthcare landscape. Contrary to what is often assumed, economic inequality’s modern rise in the U.S. is not solely attributable to globalization and technologization. New York City’s rigid economic structure stems in part from a lack of monitoring from both federal and local government in housing, healthcare, and the transfer of wealth. |
| Date: | 2026–03–16 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:brwf9_v2 |
| By: | Canavire Bacarreza, Gustavo (World Bank); Rios, Camilo (Boston University); Triveño, Luis (World Bank) |
| Abstract: | Land-use policies shape the spatial allocation of infrastructure, services, and development and thus have direct implications for welfare. This paper examines the effects of Colombia’s municipal territorial plan updates on poverty through the lens of the housing and services channel. Using municipality-level data from 2005 to 2023 and quasi-experimental treatment-effects methods, we find that in a matched design with extensive controls, plan updates reduce multidimensional poverty by roughly 1.6 percentage points. The gains are concentrated in smaller and medium-sized municipalities, especially those implementing broader plans (EOTs) and those with mid-range administrative capacity. Channel-specific estimates point to improvements in water access and housing quality. Overall, the findings indicate that the welfare impacts of planning reforms are real but place dependent, highlighting the roles of local capacity and baseline service deficits in determining whether regulatory updates translate into observable improvements. |
| Keywords: | urban planning, land-use regulation, multidimensional poverty, Colombia, program evaluation |
| JEL: | R52 O18 I32 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18452 |
| By: | Ethan Schmick; Allison Shertzer |
| Abstract: | Cities in the United States dramatically expanded spending on public education after World War I, with the average urban school district increasing per pupil expenditures by over 70 percent by 1924. We provide the first evaluation of these unprecedented investments in public education using a new dataset and plausibly exogenous growth in school spending generated by anti-German sentiment. We find that school resources significantly increased educational attainment and wages later in life, particularly for less advantaged children. Increases in expenditures can explain about 40 percent of the sizable increase in educational attainment of cohorts born between 1895 and 1913. |
| Keywords: | school spending; returns to educational resources |
| JEL: | H75 I22 N32 |
| Date: | 2026–03–16 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedpwp:102897 |
| By: | Krishna, Eashwar; Nagan, Theja Suresh |
| Abstract: | Background: Environmental justice scholarship has documented racialized inequities in urban contexts, but rural America remains understudied despite its distinct geographies of infrastructure, access, and exposure. This study addresses how racial composition relates to the built and natural environment across nonmetropolitan counties. We argue that rural inequality is best understood through the lenses of spatial justice, structural racism, and environmental justice as a systematic lack of amenities and resources shaped by race, class, and geography. Methods: The analytic sample included 1, 965 nonmetropolitan counties (USDA RUCC ≥ 4). We compiled indicators of the built environment (park access, exercise opportunities, traffic volume, commute times, broadband access, severe housing problems, primary care shortages) and natural environment (PM2.5 exposure, frequency of adverse climate events). Using Principal Component Analysis (PCA), we derived a Rural Structural Environmental Disparity Index (RSEDI). The RSEDI loads most strongly on deficits in exercise opportunities, traffic connectivity, parks, primary care, broadband, and housing quality, capturing a multidimensional pattern of deprivation. We estimated OLS regression models with robust standard errors clustered by state. Analyses were conducted at the national level, stratified by rurality (RUCC codes) and Census regions, and supplemented with Moran’s I to assess spatial clustering. Results: At the national level, counties with larger Black populations had higher disparity scores (β ≈ 0.12), while those with larger Asian populations had lower scores (β ≈ –0.10). Hispanic and Native American/Alaska Native shares showed weaker or null effects once socioeconomic status and rurality were included. Stratified models revealed sharp geographic contingency. Racial disparities were concentrated in the South, where Black population share strongly predicted higher RSEDI. In the Midwest and New England, however, the association reversed sign, suggesting divergent histories of settlement, policy, and resource allocation. In contrast, the negative association with Asian population share was consistent across nearly all regions. Discussion: The findings highlight that structural inequality in rural America cannot be reduced to a single rural–urban gradient. Instead, rural environmental disparity reflects two simultaneous disadvantages: the remoteness of isolation and the neglect of peripheral zones on metropolitan edges. Policy interventions must target both infrastructural capacity (parks, exercise facilities, broadband, primary care) and systemic vulnerability to climate and environmental stressors. Ultimately, our results show that the landscapes of rural inequality are not uniform but geographically contingent, requiring nuanced interventions attuned to region, race, and rurality. |
| Date: | 2026–03–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:rvj6d_v1 |
| By: | Xi Yang |
| Abstract: | This study examines the causal effect of housing wealth on labor supply using restricted geographic data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). The analysis employs a novel household-level instrument that measures the duration of homeowners’ exposure to housing market booms driven by credit expansion in housing supply-constrained areas, leveraging cross-household variation in both the timing and location (counties) of home purchases. Housing wealth negatively affects women’s labor supply, a 1% increase lowers participation by 0.098 pp, but shows no significant effect for men. This negative wealth effectamong female workers is driven primarily by childcare responsibilities and human capital investment, as it is strongest among mothers of young children and those who report child-related reasons for not working. Other potential mechanisms, such as income effects, precautionary saving, or liquidity constraints, do not seem to fully explain the negative association. |
| Keywords: | Housing Wealth, Credit Expansion, Female Labor Supply, Childcare and Human Capital Investment |
| JEL: | J22 G21 R21 R31 |
| Date: | 2026–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:26-15 |
| By: | Shih-Keng Yen; Ernesto F. L. Amaral |
| Abstract: | This study examines how neighborhood status and individual status jointly shape geographic mobility in the United States. Drawing on restricted-use American Community Survey data, we conceptualize neighborhood status as the relative standing of a census tract’s median family income compared to demographically similar reference neighborhoods, and individual status as a household’s relative income rank within its tract. Building on comparison theory and status inconsistency perspectives, we test whether mismatches between neighborhood and individual status influence short-distance (within-county) and long-distance (between-county) mobility. Multinomial logistic models reveal that disadvantaged neighborhood status increases within-county mobility, particularly when paired with high individual status, supporting spatial assimilation arguments. Conversely, low individual status in high-status neighborhoods heightens mobility, consistent with relative deprivation theory rather than status signaling. Results suggest that status inconsistency plays a central role in residential decision-making and that neighborhood status primarily affects short-distance mobility. The findings advance research on stratification and internal migration by integrating relative contextual and positional mechanisms. |
| Keywords: | Neighborhood status, individual status, status inconsistency, geographic mobility, internal migration |
| JEL: | R23 R21 J61 D31 Z13 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:26-20 |
| By: | Lecoursonnais, Maël; Mutgan, Selcan |
| Abstract: | Social exposure is typically studied within isolated domains, such as neighborhoods, schools, or workplaces, yet individuals encounter these environments concurrently in their daily lives. In this study, using nearly 30 years of individual-level data on schoolmates, colleagues, and neighbors, we track lower secondary school students into adulthood and examine whether exposure to affluence and poverty in key life domains—neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces—overlaps, how it changes over the life course, and for whom trajectories of exposure differ. Our findings document strong correlations in exposure to affluence and poverty across different domains and highly stratified trajectories of exposure over the life course by socioeconomic background. We also find that 17% of individuals from the lowest-income backgrounds are consistently exposed to high-income contexts across all three domains. These results underscore the enduring inequality in exposure to affluence and poverty over the life course and highlight the potential of socioeconomic integration to disrupt cycles of segregation. |
| Date: | 2026–03–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:eunwc_v2 |
| By: | Xingjian Ding; Yumin Hu; Shilei Liu; Cong Peng; Jintao Xu; Mingzhi (Jimmy) Xu; Qinghua Zhang |
| Abstract: | We estimate the causal impact of highway expansion on forest quality in China, where expressway growth coincided with widespread greening. We link maps of highways built in 2000-2010 to China's National Forest Inventory: over 18, 000 geo-located plots in 11 provinces surveyed in 1999-2003 and 2009-2013, with ground measures of standing timber volume and canopy structure. Long-difference and instrumental-variables designs—using a terrain-based least-cost network and the 1962 road plan—show that moving 10 km closer to a new highway increases timber volume by 2-4.3%, with effects concentrated 1-20 km from roads. The implied gains in forest biomass correspond to 55.8-141.9 Mt of CO2, comparable at the upper bound to the Netherlands' annual emissions. Under strict land-use controls and forest tenure reform, improved downstream market access induces investment and specialization in forestry. A calibrated spatial equilibrium model attributes most of the estimated gains to downstream market access, highlighting the environmental benefits of connectivity. |
| Keywords: | public infrastructure, environmental externalities, forest management, market access, land-use regulation |
| Date: | 2026–03–17 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp2162 |
| By: | Vitale, Tommaso Prof (Sciences Po) |
| Abstract: | This short article reconstructs the influence of Jürgen Habermas on urban studies, demonstrating how communicative action theory has shaped communicative planning theory, public sphere debates, and the legal philosophy of urban governance across five decades of European and North American scholarship. His influence has operated largely underground: through the communicative planning tradition of John Forester, Patsy Healey, and Judith Innes; through the vocabulary of deliberation and legitimacy that now pervades urban theory; and through the concept of the colonisation of the lifeworld, which provides researchers the analytical language to name what happens when markets and bureaucracies dismantle the communicative fabric of neighbourhoods. Against the prevailing reception — which treats Habermas as an abstract philosopher requiring translation into urban language — this article argues that he was, at his roots, an empirical and historical thinker of the city. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1962) is a meticulous historical sociology of how European cities — their cafés, salons, reading clubs, and press — created the institutional conditions for democratic deliberation. The Theory of Communicative Action (1981–84) diagnoses the pathologies of urban modernity through the mechanism of colonisation of the lifeworld, tracing how instrumental rationality erodes the communicative infrastructure of urban life. Between Facts and Norms (1992) advances a constitutional theory of urban governance, specifying what conditions planning and land-use decisions must meet to achieve democratic legitimacy in late-modern democratic cities. The article concludes by examining Habermas's 2022 return to the public sphere in the age of digital platforms — a structural transformation of urban democracy as far-reaching as the one he analysed sixty years earlier — and argues that communicative action theory remains an indispensable analytical resource wherever deliberative urban governance and democratic legitimacy are at stake. |
| Date: | 2026–03–13 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:9b3tj_v1 |
| By: | Gershoni, Naomi (Ben Gurion University); Stryjan, Miri (Aalto University School of Business) |
| Abstract: | Online instruction can expand access to education for disadvantaged groups, yet it often deepens performance gaps. We study its impact on high-stakes exam outcomes using administrative data on five cohorts of students in 31 Israeli vocational colleges and the abrupt shift to online instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this setting, exams were held in person and graded centrally, ensuring comparability to pre-pandemic performance. A difference-in-differences design comparing outcomes within students and across cohorts shows significant declines in exam attendance and demonstrated knowledge after the switch to online instruction. These effects are not explained by local infection rates or childcare responsibilities and are especially pronounced among Arabic-speaking minority students, regardless of socioeconomic status. Drawing on variation in infrastructure, residential crowdedness, language of instruction, and prior academic performance we identify poor internet access as a key mechanism. In addition, while the negative effects on majority students are concentrated among lower-performing students, for minority students the effects are, if anything, larger among high achievers. |
| Keywords: | online instruction, education and inequality. minorities, vocational education, higher education, COVID-19 |
| JEL: | I21 I23 I24 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18445 |
| By: | Natalia Montinari; Matteo Ploner; Veronica Rattini |
| Abstract: | This paper studies whether alternative integration-policy framings affect cooperation in ethnically diverse groups. We conduct a lab-in-the-field experiment with 390 adolescents in mixed classrooms in Italy. Within each class, students were randomly assigned to small groups that received either a neutral condition, a common-identity framing emphasizing shared school belonging, or a multicultural framing highlighting family origins and local cultural diversity, and then played a repeated public goods game with and without punishment. In the neutral condition, students with an immigrant background contributed about 17 percent more than natives. Framing diversity through a multicultural lens increased natives' contributions by about 13 percent relative to their baseline level, nearly eliminating the initial cooperation gap, whereas the common-identity framing had no detectable effect. When punishment was introduced, treatment effects on contributions became small, but multicultural framing increased the sanctioning of free riders, particularly among natives. The results suggest that cooperation in diverse settings depends not only on minority integration but also on how majority-group members respond to diversity. Policies that recognize multicultural identities, rather than emphasizing generic shared belonging alone, can strengthen cooperative norms in heterogeneous environments. |
| JEL: | C93 D91 J15 Z13 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:wp1219 |
| By: | Zeen He (Lancaster University, Management School); Luu Duc Toan Huynh (Queen Mary University of London, School of Business and Management) |
| Abstract: | This paper leverages China’s 2006 housing reform and a non-parametric Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD) to identify the causal impact of housing wealth on health and healthcare spending across age groups. A positive housing wealth shock leads to an increase in out-of-pocket medical expenses of the elderly and children at both the extensive and intensive margins, thereby improving their health. These effects differ across age cohorts, highlighting how positive wealth shocks translate into health improvements through direct spending and private insurance uptake. In contrast, these health effects are not evident among young adults. Overall, the findings indicate that wealth shocks reduce health inequality within vulnerable households. The underlying mechanisms differ by age group: a pure wealth effect for the elderly, precautionary savings incentives for younger adults, and intergenerational investments for children. |
| Keywords: | Housing wealth; Medical expenditure; Health; China; Age differences |
| JEL: | G51 I11 I14 |
| Date: | 2026–03–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cgs:wpaper:124 |
| By: | Rebolledo, Nicolás; Almeyda, Gonzalo; Granada Donato, David; Lombardi, María; Oubiña, Victoria; Zoido, Pablo |
| Abstract: | This paper evaluates a randomized remote tutoring program implemented in Paraguay, targeting 1, 650 students in grades four through six with low baseline performance in Spanish language. The intervention provided two weekly 30-minute one-on-one tutoring sessions over the phone for eight weeks, using a differentiated instruction model tailored to students initial diagnostic assessments. Treated students showed significant learning gains: those offered tutoring scored 0.11 standard deviations higher on standardized language tests compared to controls. Effects were consistent across sociodemographic subgroups and baseline achievement levels. Leveraging the random assignment of students to tutors, we estimate individual tutor value added, and find that tutor effects account for 15% of the variation in student outcomes. Tutors in the top quintile have an average value added of 0.38 standard deviations, almost four times the overall effect of the program, underscoring the importance of individual tutor effectiveness in scaling tutoring interventions successfully. |
| JEL: | J20 J24 O15 |
| Date: | 2026–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:14534 |
| By: | Jafari, Afshin; Giles-Corti, Billie |
| Abstract: | Proximity based planning has become an influential idea in urban policy, centred on the goal of meeting daily needs within short walking and cycling distances of home. However, most studies still assess access to single destinations, even though daily travel often involves linked tours rather than isolated trips. This paper develops a tour based perspective on proximity based planning and examines how daily activity patterns differ across Greater Melbourne. Using data from the Melbourne travel survey, we construct home based tours from full day travel diaries, classify them by destination structure, and estimate separate latent class models for weekdays and weekends. The results show that outer Melbourne is much more car dependent than inner Melbourne, while the overall structure of weekday and weekend tour patterns is more similar across the city. Car dominated tours increase from 49.5% in the inner ring to 79.9% in the outer ring, while walk dominated tours fall from 27.4% to 12.2%. The latent class analysis shows that similar weekday and weekend tour archetypes are found across inner, middle, and outer Melbourne, but are realised through different modes. Within the same classes, walking and public transport are more common in the inner ring, while car use is highest in the outer ring. These findings suggest that proximity based planning should not be assessed only by whether destinations are nearby, but by whether neighbourhoods allow people to combine daily activities without needing a car. |
| Date: | 2026–03–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:53s98_v1 |