Population Density and Households' Transportation and Housing Cost Trade-Offs

摘要

As metropolitan area governments and others promote density-promoting smart growth" policies, finer analysis is needed to quantify the impact of such policies on households' transportation and housing costs. Existing research suggests that house- holds in urban areas trade-off between housing costs and transportation costs, but does not explore how policies to increase urban densities might explicitly impact this balance. Furthermore, the research does not adequately distinguish between the eect of urban area density and the effects of other factors associated with urban area den- sity (e.g metropolitan area size and incomes) on housing costs. This paper uses the 2000 Census Public Use Micro Sample (PUMS) data from twenty-three states of the nation's most densely populated states to identify the impact of increased population density on household rents, housing unit values and monthly mortgage payments. The research also explores the relationships between housing costs and transportation op- tions. Results show increased population density is a significant but relatively weak driver of housing costs. Alternative model specifications could not explain away the positive effect of density. Results also confirm previous research that suggests house- holds utilizing xed route transit systems pay a premium for that access.