Lectures
Office HoursTWF,
12:30-1:20pm
Tuesdays 10:30-12:30
DSB C103
Course Outline.
Announcements
*Problem Set 6 has been posted
Slides (see course outline for corresponding readings in text):
T0_micro_review
T1_notes_intro
T2_notes_whycities
T3_notes_citysize
T4_urbangrowth
T5_land_rent
T6_land_use
T7_neighbourhood_choice
T8_landuse_policy
T9_cars_highways
T10_transit
T11_poverty_crime
T12_housing
T13_affordable_housing
Problem Sets
ule_pset1 ule_pset1_soln
ule_pset2
ule_pset2_soln
ule_pset3
ule_pset3_soln
ule_pset4
ule_pset4_soln
ule_pset5
ule_pset5_soln
ule_pset6
ule_pset6_soln
Links to Additional Readings (* indicates a link provided by a student. Thanks!)
National Geographic article on
Gobekli Tepe (archeological site) and an alternative theory of the rise of cities.
NPR Cities Project (series of articles and podcasts)
Will Doig's
Dream Cities series in salon.com
NY Times
series on cities using subsidies to attract business.
Radiolab
Cities episode (National Public Radio)
A Mass Mating Signal Over the Smoky Mountains (agglomeration externalities occur in nature too!)
E-Mail is Easy to Write (and to Misread) (on the benefits of face-to-face meetings)
As Stadiums Vanish Their Debt Lives On
TED talks coming to Vancouver!
TED talk
on cities as biological processes* (I prefer an analytic approach based
on human behaviour, but it's interesting to see how other disciplines
approach the question of urban growth)
Companionship and a Good Deal (about consumer substitution)
Micro apartments in NY City
Micro lofts in Vancouver
The world looks to "
Vancouverism" as a model for urban development.
Do highways cause sprawl?
Los Angeles and the Little Red Car conspiracy (note podcast as well as website)
BBC story on Ghost cities in China*. These Ghost cities are a form of Edge City, as discussed in lecture.
Australian
news report on a Chinese Ghost City*
Op-Ed: Toll on Malahat?
Op-Ed: Growth Limits in CRD?
CBC: Canadians support tolls for roads
National Geographic
Slideshow on urban density.
National Geographic article on
Shanghai.
Compare
median incomes by Census tract in the
United States to get a sense
of residential income
segregation.
A
review of the new SimCity
Neighbourhood
matters (or, perhaps, why Vancouver is due for a crash.)
Agglomeration externalities in the
comedy business.
New York City's
Geek Squad (quantitative analysis of urban problems)
Homelessness and the changing face of Los Angeles' Skid Row
Reddit discussion of
amalgamation and the CRD.
*Note: Readings above in Boldface may be quizzed on the final. As may Glaeser readings.
Radio
"Changing the Sound" (a 3-part series on Seattle's KUOW about
how Seattle transformed itself from a manufacturing center to an
information-age city.) Each segment is just a few minutes.
Part I
Part II
Part III
This American Life (NPR)
Right To Remain Silent (about "juking the stats" in the New York Police Department--how policy departments have
an incentive to misreport crime)
Back to School (about the returns to early childhood education and much much more)
Television
For those who haven't seen it,
The Wire is
a great show about a modern US city on the rocks (Baltimore). It deals
with urban
decay, politics, crime, drugs, industry, education, the press, corruption, and
more. It even makes fun of academic social scientists. Lots of
economic themes pop up throughout the series. You could probably teach
an entire course on the show. Anyway, it's not assigned viewing,
but if you're looking for a way to procrastinate in this course, you
could worse than to download and watch this series. There's some
discussion of the economics of the wire
here and
here.
Music
Cities have inspired music in many ways over the decades, or
even centuries. Songs have been written about urban decay (Jimmy Nail's
Big River about the coal industry in Newcastle upon Tyne in the north of England; Bruce Springsteen's
Youngstown
about a steel town in Ohio). Either of these songs could have
been written about dying lumber mill towns in BC. Songs have been
written about urban sprawl (Joni Mitchell's
Big Yellow Taxi, covered here), crime, the drug trade, and a multitude of other issues, both positive and negative.
Since you're all more in tune with contemporary music than I, feel free
to email me suggestions of songs with an urban theme (preferably with a
URL to free-access listening--like Youtube; and a brief explanation of
why it's relevant--if it isn't obvious). This term I'm going to try to
compile a list of suggestions to post on the course website. Songs
written in languages other than English are welcome too! Cities
are a universal phenomenon after all.
Note that Wikipedia has a list of
songs about cities,
but they don't link to free-access versions. Also, these are
songs about specific cities rather than songs about urban issues.
So our list could be much broader than this.
Your suggestions...
Allentown (Billy Joel)
Death to My Hometown (Bruce Springsteen)
Dirty Old Town (The Pogues)
Fairytale of New York (The Pogues)
Life in a Northern Town (Dream Academy)
Americanarama (Hollerado)
The Dead Flag Blues (Godspeed You! Black Emperor)
East Hastings (Godspeed You! Black Emperor)
Welcome to Tijuana (Manu Chao)
Tampico (Stan Kenton)
Tijuana Makes Me Happy (Nortec Collective)
Inner City Blues (Rodriguez)
Empire State of Mind (Jay-Z and Alicia Keys)
Exam Info
Exam 1 Info
Practice Midterm 1 Solutions
Midterm 1 Scores (expressed as a percentage; by ascending V00)
Midterm 1
Solutions_V1 Solutions_V2
Exam 2 Info
Practice Midterm 2 Solutions
Midterm 2 Scores (expressed as a percentage; by ascending V00)
Midterm 2
Solutions_V1 Solutions_V2
Final Exam Info
Practice Final (Note: I don't provide solutions to practice finals; bring questions to office hours)
Because some material for your second midterm was
covered on the final in 2011, I'm posting that final to give you extra
practice problems for Midterm 2.
Blogs you might enjoy
Economy Lab (Globe and Mail)
Vibrant Victoria
Environmental and Urban Economics
Richard's Real Estate and Urban Economics Blog
Marginal Revolution
The Bowery Boys (A blog
about the history of NY City) In case I haven't made the point,
you should all try to spend some time in NYC sometimes. It's an
awesome city. Crash with a friend, share an apartment with a group of
friends (you can rent by the day), stay at a hostel...whatever.
And then get out and walk the city. Do a neighbourhood or two a
day. Eat at cheap restaurants or food carts, go to free events
(many museum admissions are by donation). It's a great place to
be poor, especially if you've got free time, the willingness to crash
on a floor or couch, and an ability to say "no" to expensive
restaurants and shops. I spent three years there with barely any
disposable income, but it was great.
