Adding Up What Urban Highways Really Cost A new report maps the economic toll that downtown freeways exact on 142 US cities — and tallies up what that land could be worth if it was developed for other uses.

Another link to the Bloomberg Story on the Atlas of Inner City Highway Impacts: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

We revised our Skyscraper Revolution paper github.com/Ahlfeldt/DPs...
Added indirect inference to estimate the QoL effect of density by matching causal reduced-form estimates in the model => more realistic counterfactuals. Quick read @voxeu.org: cepr.org/voxeu/column... @bsoeberlin.bsky.social

Life next to the great urban barrier When your home sits alongside the expressway

I wrote an essay about how freeways divide our urban fabric (largely inspired by my personal experiences living a couple blocks from the Kennedy)

pencillingout.substack.com/p/life-next-...

At least it seems we'll find out pretty quickly!

This week's @cep-lse.bsky.social Trade and Urban Seminar @jeffrlin.bsky.social "Spreading Out in Expanding Idea Space"
cep.lse.ac.uk/_new/events/...

this is kind of spectacular -- you can't escape your hydrological destiny

Reflections on a year of reading Chicago A journey through the Windy City's many great books

In an effort to get to know my new home, I've sought out all kinds of books about Chicago. Here are some notes on my favorite books about this great city, and noteworthy themes across my reading.
pencillingout.substack.com/p/reflection...

The Price of Housing in the United States, 1890–2006* Abstract. We construct the first annual market rent and home sales price series for American cities over the twentieth century using 2.7 million newspaper

#QJE Feb 2026, #10, “The Price of Housing in the United States, 1890–2006,” by Lyons (@ronanlyons), Shertzer (@econhist-allday), Gray (@econhistoryorbust), and Agorastos: doi.org/10.1093/qje/...

Join us Monday at 8:00am in 310 for an #ASSA2026 session on Spatial Sorting and Economic Transformations

Papers on poverty (non-)traps, income sorting, urban exploration & WFH by Bryan Stuart, Yuhei Miyauchi, Gabriel Kreindler, Yichen Su.

Discussants: @chrisseveren.bsky.social, Couture, Rappaport

Join us Saturday at 10:15am for an #ASSA2026 session on Development of American Cities

featuring papers on mortgage markets, slavery, migration & ghost towns by L D'Amico, S Naidu, T Jaworski, M Hoelzlein

Discussants: @econhist-allday.bsky.social, S Heblich, @allie-green.com, @jeffrlin.bsky.social

These are 10 of my favourite #UrbanEconomics & #SpatialEconomics articles published in academic journals in 2025, continuing with a tradition started in 2018 (order is alphabetical by first author, no ranking implied):

The Price of Housing in the United States, 1890–2006* Abstract. We construct the first annual market rent and home sales price series for American cities over the 20th century using 2.7 million newspaper real

Recently accepted by #QJE, “The Price of Housing in the United States, 1890–2006,” by Lyons (@ronanlyons), Shertzer (@econhist-allday), Gray (@econhistoryorbust), and Agorastos: doi.org/10.1093/qje/...

Congrats Oren! 🥳

Hi all, please spread the word and we hope everyone can make good use of this new data drop: cmfdata.org

The full surviving establishment-level Census of Manufactures manuscripts and digitized data from 1850, 1860, 1870, and 1880!

Nativist/ Bible Riots of 1844 - Association of Philadelphia Tour Guides The Association of Philadelphia Tour Guides (APT) will hold its next monthly meeting on Wednesday, November 12 at 7 pm, in person at the Great Hall of Christ Church Neighborhood […]

Next Wednesday in Philadelphia!
phillyguides.org/event/nativi...

🚨New predoc positions!🚨

Join @alexbartik.bsky.social and me to work on developing LLM tools to analyze zoning regulations and their impacts on housing affordability.

One position starting at the "normal" cycle next year, and another ASAP.

Apply here: apply.interfolio.com/176538

Okay #EconSky, if you do any kind of spatial analysis, it's a good time to be alive

☞ A new, open-access global spatial database combining 73 harmonized datasets on the world population, its distribution in space, and its characteristics, 2015–2023:

doi.org/10.12688/ver...

Hello #econsky, the Nebraska Labor Summit will be held Friday, March 13, 2026. It's a really fun, junior-centric, research conference in labor and related applied micro fields. Martha Bailey and Alex Mas will give the keynotes. Deadline for submissions is Nov. 1! forms.gle/JC5tN5cT1R2i4ZUJA

New in JOEG: Off-the-job learning in cities. #econsky #urbanecon

<em>Real Estate Economics</em> | AREUEA Journal | Wiley Online Library <em>Real Estate Economics</em> is a leading journal facilitating communication between researchers and industry professionals and improving the analysis of real estate decisions.

Check out the call for papers for a Real Estate Economics Special Issue on Commercial Real Estate with guest editor Xudong An! Special-Issue conference sessions will be held at the AREUEA National Meeting in Washington, D.C., in May 2026. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal...

in new @findingspress.org paper, PhD candidate shirin qiam
(now at Minneapolis Met Council). uses a deep learning model and post processing pipeline that outlines surface parking lots. Tulsa has a lot, Oakland surprisingly little.
findingspress.org/article/1452...

Call for student poster submissions for the AREUEA-ASSA conference, deadline November 1. www.areuea.org/areuea-assa

Call for submissions for AREUEA doctoral dissertation award. Submission deadline October 31. Recent PhDs who defended between July 2024 and June 2025 are eligible. www.areuea.org/hoyt-institu...

Call for submissions for AREUEA doctoral dissertation award. Submission deadline October 31. Recent PhDs who defended between July 2024 and June 2025 are eligible. www.areuea.org/hoyt-institu...

Call for student poster submissions for the AREUEA-ASSA conference, deadline November 1. www.areuea.org/areuea-assa

Thanks to everyone who came to the @urbaneconomics.bsky.social North American Meetings in Montreal and to all those who worked behind the scenes to make it happen. Our next meeting will be in Barcelona, 8-9 May 2026. Call for papers coming soon.

William “Holly” Whyte in His Own Words, “The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces” (1980) YouTube video by Streetfilms®

Very exciting! The seminal 1980 documentary "The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces" by William H. "Holly" Whyte has been RESTORED and screening in NYC this week!

I wanted to honor his work and used his words in the companion book and produced this 11 years ago.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU2v...

Excited to see the new Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics (Volume 6), edited jointly with Dave Donaldson come out: www.sciencedirect.com/handbook/han.... Fantastic set of chapters on recent advances and pointing the way to exciting further research @treballen.bsky.social @siepr.bsky.social

Check out our conversation on Densely Speaking with Zach about this research from earlier this year. @gregshill.com

open.spotify.com/episode/6HcN...

Neat paper!