Los Angeles county: Streetcars' influence, visible in current urban density, has not dissipated in the 60 years since the streetcar's removal; mutually reinforcing pathways of regulation & agglomerative clustering

Vestiges of Transit: Urban Persistence at a Micro Scale. Leah Brooks and Byron Lutz. Review of Economics and Statistics, March 04, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_00817

Abstract: We document intra-city spatial persistence and its causes. Streetcars dominated urban transit in Los Angeles County from the 1890s to the early 1910s, and were off the road entirely by 1963. However, we find that streetcars' influence remains readily visible in the current pattern of urban density and that this influence has not dissipated in the 60 years since the streetcar's removal. We examine land use regulation both as a consequence of streetcars and as a mechanism for streetcars' persistent effect. Our evidence suggests that the streetcar influences modern behavior through the mutually reinforcing pathways of regulation and agglomerative clustering.

EconLit codes: R3, R4, R5, N9

 We document intra-city spatial persistence and its causes.