We study whether highway and railroad improvements cause population suburbanization in Europe’s cities. We construct a unique population and transportation dataset covering 579 cities from 29 European countries for the period 1961–2011. In order to make a causal inference, we rely on historical instruments. Our average results indicate that highways, but not railroads, were responsible for the suburbanization process: each additional highway ray decreased the share of the central city population by 5 percentage points, whereas new railroads had no impact. The heterogeneity analyses provide evidence of different patterns based on the time of the investment, the city’s size and density, and its geographical location.

中文翻译：

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欧洲城市的郊区化和交通


我们研究高速公路和铁路的改善是否会导致欧洲城市的人口郊区化。我们构建了一个独特的人口和交通数据集，涵盖 1961 年至 2011 年期间 29 个欧洲国家的 579 个城市。为了做出因果推断，我们依赖历史工具。我们的平均结果表明，高速公路而非铁路对郊区化进程负有责任：每增加一条高速公路，中心城市人口的比例就会减少 5 个百分点，而新铁路则没有任何影响。异质性分析提供了基于投资时间、城市规模和密度以及地理位置的不同模式的证据。