Economics Theses and Dissertations

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Essays on Urban Housing and Gentrification
(University of Oregon, 2022-10-04) Briar, Cory; Colas, Mark
Cities are the locus of the overwhelming majority of economic activity in modern societies; understanding the interactions of urban trends and policies is crucial to achieving desired economic outcomes. This dissertations provides three papers characterizing the mechanisms of change in US cities over the last 30 years. After an introduction in chapter one, chapter two investigates the role of firm- sorting in the process of gentrification in Seattle, Washington between the yearsof 1990 and 2018, and finds that holding firm distributions fixed at 1990 levels leads to a significant attenuation of the process. Chapter three repeats the analysis of chapter two for the city of Portland, Oregon and compares results with those in Seattle. Chapter three investigates the connection between turnover in the housing market and modern rent control policy in San Francisco, California, and demonstrates the factors at play that lead to the deletion of older structures under said policy from the market.