Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral)--Delft University of Technology, Delft, 2012.

Residents know exactly what their neighbourhood is like. House-hunters, on the other hand, must find out for themselves about the intangible social quality of a neighbourhood. As a simple rule of thumb, neighbourhood reputation can offer them an assessment of neighbourhood quality. In this research, regression analyses are applied to test whether neighbourhood reputations are being used as a proxy measure for neighbourhood quality in residential mobility choices and establishing the price of homes. The empirical results go beyond answering this research question. What price, for instance, do residents place on liveability? Why does urban restructuring so often fail to change the social make-up of an area, despite a marked increase in owner-occupation? Why does gentrification appear to emerge spontaneously, while deliberate attempts to gentrify an area often fail? How does a neighbourhood acquire that ‘golden edge’? This book also provides the answers to the above policy-oriented questions.

The Economics of Neighborhood integrates neighborhood into contemporary notions of the urban economy. Neighborhood is viewed as a good with demand, supply, and equilibrium aspects. Topics covered range from demand for neighborhood and interneighborhood mobility to neighborhood choice and transportation services. The role of governments as suppliers of neighborhoods is also considered. Comprised of 12 chapters, this book begins with an introduction to some of the efforts to measure neighborhood effects and the approaches used in analyzing the role of neighborhood in the urban economy. The next section deals with the determinants of neighborhood demand in different eastern and midwestern cities in the United States in the mid- to late 1960s. The location choice of a sample of Pittsburgh households is examined, along with the role that neighborhood transition at the origin played in governing the decision to move or stay put. Subsequent chapters focus on the neighborhood choice of households already living in Washington, D.C., in 1968 as a joint prior choice of residential location, housing type, automobile ownership, and mode of travel to work; how the supply of certain kinds of neighborhoods can be determined by the interaction of residential demand and housing supply in the private sector; and optimum neighborhood supply by local governments. The concluding section analyzes neighborhood in an equilibrium setting, with emphasis on price outcomes and the quantity aspects of neighborhood. This monograph will be of value to economists as well as to researchers and students interested in urban economics.

This first textbook on the topic of gentrification is written for upper-level undergraduates in geography, sociology, and planning. The gentrification of urban areas has accelerated across the globe to become a central engine of urban development, and it is a topic that has attracted a great deal of interest in both academia and the popular press. Gentrification presents major theoretical ideas and concepts with case studies, and summaries of the ideas in the book as well as offering ideas for future research.

Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has declared school voucher programs constitutional, the many unanswered questions concerning the potential effects of school choice will become especially pressing. Contributors to this volume draw on state-of-the-art economic methods to answer some of these questions, investigating the ways in which school choice affects a wide range of issues. Combining the results of empirical research with analyses of the basic economic forces underlying local education markets, The Economics of School Choice presents evidence concerning the impact of school choice on student achievement, school productivity, teachers, and special education. It also tackles difficult questions such as whether school choice affects where people decide to live and how choice can be integrated into a system of school financing that gives children from different backgrounds equal access to resources. Contributors discuss the latest findings on Florida's school choice program as well as voucher programs and charter schools in several other states. The resulting volume not only reveals the promise of school choice, but examines its pitfalls as well, showing how programs can be designed that exploit the idea's potential but avoid its worst effects. With school choice programs gradually becoming both more possible and more popular, this book stands out as an essential exploration of the effects such programs will have, and a necessary resource for anyone interested in the idea of school choice.