Master 2019/2020

Spatial Economics

Type: Elective course (Prototyping Future Cities)

Area of studies: Urban Planning

Delivered by: Vysokovsky Graduate School of Urbanism

Where: Faculty of Urban and Regional Development

When: 2 year, 1 semester

Mode of studies: offline

Instructors: Egor Kotov

Master’s programme: Prototyping Future Cities

Language: English

ECTS credits: 4

Contact hours: 48

Course Syllabus

Abstract

The course is a mix of urban economics, spatial statistics and the study of urban form. The three topics are interconnected based on the relevant recent literature suggesting economic effects in the cities based on the parameters of urban form, the location of businesses and their associated profitability and attractiveness to the citizens.

Learning Objectives

• Demonstrate to the students how the use of urban data about the location of businesses and features of the urban form enriched with spatial dimension can improve our understanding of cities and transform our approach to the city management
• Show how to analyse and map the urban economic data available on public information portals.
• Introduce to urban form and accessibility analysis techniques.

Expected Learning Outcomes

• Apply ordinary and spatial regression models to perform the analysis of the interaction of spatially distributed variables regarding city economics
• Explain the importance of urban form and accessibility to the urban economy and its effects on the location of businesses in the city
• Perform computational urban morphological analysis using GIS tools

Course Contents

• Seeing Cities Through (Big) Data
  Spatial accessibility. Spatial urban data sources. Official vs. alternative statistics. Urban analytics for urban planning.
• Urban Morphology and Spatial Accessibility
  Qualitative vs quantitative urban morphology. Spatial morphology and Space Syntax. Practical applications of spatial morphology. Evolution space syntax. Choosing indicators for spatial analysis.
• Introduction to Statistics for Studying Urban Economics and Spatial Analysis
  Basics of statistical analysis. Statistical summaries. Approaches and tools for visualising large datasets. Ordinary least squares regression. Spatial autocorrelation. Spatial extensions to ordinary regression.
• Introduction to Economics for Studying Urban Economics
  Basics of economics. Land demand and supply. External effects.
• Urban Economics and Spatial Structure Fundamentals
  Integrating spatial structure analysis and urban economics.

Assessment Elements

• Lab Work 1
• Lab Work 2
• Lab Work 3

Interim Assessment

• Interim assessment (1 semester)
  0.33 * Lab Work 1 + 0.33 * Lab Work 2 + 0.34 * Lab Work 3

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

• Alasdair Turner. (2007). From axial to road-centre lines: a new representation for space syntax and a new model of route choice for transport network analysis. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, (3), 539. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsrep&AN=edsrep.a.pio.envirb.v34y2007i3p539.555
• Arbia G. Spatial Econometrics: Statistical Foundations and Applications to Regional Convergence. Springer Science & Business Media, 2006. 220 p.
• Arnott R.J., McMillen D.P. A Companion to Urban Economics. John Wiley & Sons, 2006. 604 p.
• Brueckner J.K. Lectures on urban economics. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2011. 285 p.
• Offenhuber D., Ratti C. Decoding the city: Urbanism in the age of big data. Birkhäuser, 2014.

Recommended Additional Bibliography

• Oliveira V. Urban morphology: an introduction to the study of physical form of cities. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2016.