A QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS OF SUBURBANIZATION AND THE DIFFUSION OF THE AUTOMOBILE资料.pdfVIP

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC REVIEW Vol. 51, No. 4, November 2010 A QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS OF SUBURBANIZATION AND THE DIFFUSION OF THE AUTOMOBILE∗ BY KAREN A. KOPECKY AND RICHARD M. H. SUEN1 The University of Western Ontario, Canada; University of California, Riverside, U.S.A. Suburbanization in the United States between 1910 and 1970 was concurrent with the diffusion of the automobile. A circular city model is developed in order to access quantitatively the contribution of automobiles and rising incomes to suburbanization. The model incorporates a number of driving forces of suburbanization and car adoption, including falling automobile prices, rising real incomes, changing costs of traveling by car and with public transportation, and urban population growth. According to the model, 60% of postwar (1940–1970) suburbanization can be explained by these factors. Rising real incomes and falling automobile prices are shown to be the key drivers of suburbanization. 1. INTRODUCTION Suburbanization has been observed in cities throughout the United States since the late 19th century when omnibus, commuter railroads, and streetcars were first implemented. But technological progress in transportation made its biggest contributions during the 20th cen- tury with the invention of the automobile and later the modern highway system. The adoption of the private vehicle as the dominant form of transportation in the United States, combined with rising income levels, encouraged movement to less dense areas where housing was more affordable. The goals of this article are to (1) measure the contribution of automobiles to subur- banization during the postwar (1940–1970) period and (2) quantify the relative contributions of falling automobile prices, rising real incomes, changing costs of traveling by car and wit