This paper documents and explains the striking reversal of fortune of urban America from 2000 to 2010. We show that almost all large American cities have experienced rising numbers in young professionals near their Central Business Districts over the last decade. We assemble a rich database at a fine spatial scale to test a number of competing hypotheses explaining this recent trend. We first estimate a residential choice model to assess the relative roles of amenities, job locations, and housing prices in drawing the young and college-educated downtown. We find that initial conditions of consumption amenities, especially service establishments, explain the diverging location decisions of the young and college-educated relative to their non-college-educated peers and their older college-educated counterparts. The coefficients on these initial conditions suggest that preferences for these amenities are changing over time. We investigate this hypothesis using complementary datasets, where we find that non-tradable service amenities are also playing an increasingly dominant role in the expenditure and travel decisions of the young and college-educated relative to other groups. Finally, we show that these new trends are partially explained by the changing income composition and family structure of the young and college-educated.
1010 Affordable Housing Amazon Amenitization Architecture Artificial Intelligence Asia Australia automation Autonomous Vehicles bonds Borrowing Constraints Brexit California Canada Capital Business China Co-Working Environment coastal markets cold storage Colombia Commercial Brokerage Commercial Real Estate commissions Congestion consumer bias covid-19 CRE credit card market Credit Default Swaps Credit Insurance Credit Risk Transfers Culture Data Analytics data centers Data Collection Technology Debt Market Demand Demographics Density Development Discrete Choice disruption Diversity drones e-Commerce Economic Corridors economic policy economics education election studies Equity Funds Equity Market Ethnic Factors Europe Fannie Mae financial asset management Foreclosures Foreign Policy France Freddie Mac general equilibrium Global global economy Global Financial Crisis Globalization great depression Great Recession healthy buildings Hedonic hospitality Housing & Residential housing boom Housing Disease housing prices Housing Supply Identity Income Inequality India inflation Inter-generational mobility interest rates Investing jobs labor market Lagging Regions land use regulation Language life sciences Macroeconomics malls Market Pricing megacities Microeconomics Migration Minimum Payments Mixed-Use Mobility moral hazard mortgage insurance mortgage market Mortgage Rates Mortgages Multi-family Nation Building Non-Traditional Mortgages Office Market office sector pension funds Placed Based Policies Political Risk Price Discovery Private Equity Business public health public policy Public Schools real estate brokerage Real Estate Investment Real Estate Investment Trusts Recession Rental Retail Retirement reverse mortgages Risk Adjustment risk management risk-shifting robotics single family housing Slums Sorting South America Spatial Regions spillover effect stimulus package Sub-Prime Mortgages Supply Chains Sustainability Technology telecommunications trade transportation unemployment United States Urban Urbanization Warehouse welfare work from home