Lecture and seminar
The course includes:
- Historical and current characteristics of city size and problems.
- Market forces in the existence and development of cities and urban areas.
- Model building: (equilibrium and dynamics)
- Urban land rent, housing prices, and neighborhood choice.
- Land use regulation, zoning, and growth.
- Transportation externalities: congestion, noise, pollution.
- Mass transit and urban infrastructure requirements.
- Urban problems: crime, poverty, pollution.
- Public policy toward housing and provision of public goods
- Role of local government. (revenues, spending, regulation.)
At the end of the course, the student will be able to:
- Identify the economic forces and principles which explain why cities exist.
- Define the location orientations of firms. (ie. Clustering, economies of scale, etc)
- Explain how land and housing markets function and how rents are determined.
- Describe location equilibriums and analyze how they can change.
- Understand and analyze how land and housing markets function, and how land use regulation affects these markets.
- Identify and critique the different forms of land use regulation used in the Canada.
- Explain the economic consequences of different approaches to regulating urban land use (employment, spatial distribution, sprawl, etc)
- Identify reasons for poverty and crime concentration in urban areas.
- Identify different low-income housing assistance policies used in Canada, and evaluate the effects of different housing policies (subsidies, incentives, and government-provided housing).
- Evaluate urban environmental and transportation problems.
| Mid-term examination(s) | 25% - 30% |
| Essay, Project | 0% - 30% |
| Assignments (group and individual) | 0% - 15% |
| Final Examination | 30% - 40% |
| Total | 100% |
Students may conduct research as part of their coursework in this class. Instructors for the course are responsible for ensuring that student research projects comply with College policies on ethical conduct for research involving humans, which can require obtaining Informed Consent from participants and getting the approval of the Douglas College Research Ethics Board prior to conducting the research.
Textbooks and Materials to be Purchased by Students
One of (instructor’s choice)
O’Sullivan. A. (latest Ed.) Urban Economics. McGraw-Hill.
Or text approved by the Economics department.
In addition, there will be readings assigned by instructor.
Courses listed here are equivalent to this course and cannot be taken for further credit:
- No equivalency courses