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Urban Economics

Examine history, policy and economic outcomes in urban neighborhoods.

Changes to the urban area criteria used for the 2020 census data have resulted in shifts in the rural-urban population distribution in parts of the Fifth District.
Richmond Fed Research Director Kartik Athreya shares takeaways from the annual Technology-Enabled Disruption Conference, co-hosted by the Richmond, Atlanta and Dallas Feds.
The most recent District Dialogues program explored ways that extreme weather is affecting the economy and Fifth District communities.
New Jersey voters approved legalized gambling for Atlantic City in a 1976 referendum. The state explicitly leveraged the city's regional monopoly on casinos east of the Mississippi River as an economic development strategy to revive the blighted seaside resort town.
Adam Scavette
Regional Economist
Santiago Pinto discusses his research on commuting patterns in the Fifth District and how these patterns may help us better understand the economic connections between rural and urban communities. Pinto is a senior economist and policy advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
Examining commuting behavior helps show how connected counties are in the Fifth Federal Reserve District.
We're building our data products to help data users and local and state leaders gain quick insight into geographic differences across a range of indicators.
Nicholas Haltom
Senior Manager
Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, have people moved away from urban cores in favor of more rural areas?
Crime is a complex, multidimensional problem. Different factors explain the large observed variability in crime rates across geographic areas and demographic groups.
According to the latest census data, the share of Americans living in rural areas continued to decline over the past decade, while urban areas have grown.
How do local government borrowing, default, and migration interact? We find in-migration results in excessive debt accumulation due to a key externality: Immigrants help repay previously issued debt.
Grey Gordon and Pablo Guerrón-Quintana
Some policymakers, researchers, and commentators have expressed their belief that a concerted federal investment in technology, or in research and development, can help level the playing field nationwide and spur economic growth. But is it optimal for all localities to specialize in the same sorts of industries?
Neeraja Deshpande
New technology is changing where and how some crops are grown.
Green infrastructure can help reduce polluting runoff during severe storms, but questions about costs give some localities pause
COVID-19 transformed how we work and socialize, which could put the future of cities on a new path
How did rural and urban counties compare on measures of health outcomes and drivers prior to the COVID-19 pandemic?
Reston, Va., and Columbia, Md., were founded in the 1960s with similar visions for inclusive, connected communities.
Emily Wavering Corcoran
Although the Fifth District’s black population tends to have higher employment and educational attainment compared to the nation’s, there are still significant disparities relative to whites.
This paper studies the urban structure of Detroit — one that is clearly not optimal for its size — which features a business district immediately surrounded by largely vacant neighborhoods.
In partnership with the University of Virginia, this special report showcases prepared remarks, previously published work and papers on Jane Jacobs.
To study the allocation of workers across cities, we propose and quantify a spatial equilibrium model with multiple industries that employ CNR and alternative (non-CNR) occupations.
A new financing model for distressed communities offers both promise and pitfalls.
This issue of Community Scope focuses on the history of housing policy in Baltimore, including practices that separated residents by race, ethnicity and religion.
Anne A. Burnett and Peter M. Dolkart
We document that seasonal temperatures have significant and systematic effects on the U.S. economy, both at the aggregate level and across a wide cross section of economic sectors.
Riccardo Colacito, Bridget Hoffmann and Toan Phan
The Fifth District includes both urban and rural communities. How do we define urban and rural, and what do data tell us about the disparities?
Joseph Mengedoth
Regional Economist
How accessible are opioid treatment programs? This issue of 5th District Footprint explores District residents' access to programs.
Petersburg, Virginia, prospered over two centuries as a center of production and trade. However, the city experienced economic difficulties beginning in the 1980s as a large number of layoffs at production plants in the area coincided with an erosion of retail trade in the city.
Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin discussed geographic differences between rural and urban areas, workforce development, and mobility at the Reinventing Our Communities conference.
Tom Barkin
President, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond
Ride-sharing services have been competing with the taxi industry and encountering regulatory spats, yet they have grown markedly, particularly around the District of Columbia.
Caitlin Dutta
Charlotte, N.C., has the most diverse industrial mix of any Fifth District city. What causes industry diversity in cities?
Michael Stanley
This issue of 5th District Footprint examines national trends in the poverty rate and how it has changed in District counties since the Great Recession.
This issue of Community Scope details steps to produce GEOLOOM co>map, an online mapping tool for arts and culture in Baltimore's communities.
Christine Hwang and Seema D. Iyer, PhD
With opioid cases on the rise, this issue of 5th District Footprint examines opioid prescription rates and drug overdose mortality rates in the District.
The effects of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma on Fifth District firms were largely indirect and negative, although some businesses reported positive economic impacts.
Jeannette Plamp
The Fifth District economy has been increasingly driven by urban areas. How do we understand the existence, growth and decline of cities?
Sonya Ravindranath Waddell
Vice President
The Fifth District Hispanic population has been exhibiting significant growth, but labor market indicators provide insight on income disparity relative to population overall.
Ann Battle Macheras
Group Vice President
This initiative invested federal grant funding in target neighborhoods from 1999-2004. It offers lessons on the impact of community development efforts in disinvested neighborhoods.
The absence of "boomerang buyers" in the housing market could have implications for near-term economic growth in the United States.
Urban revitalization efforts have a mixed record. A combination of “place-based” and “people-based” policies may be most successful.
This issue of 5th District Footprint provides a look at changes along the rural-urban continuum for localities in the Fifth District between 2003 and 2013.