East side story : historical pollution and persistent neighborhood sorting
Abstract
Why are the east sides of formerly industrial cities often the more deprived? Using individual-level census data together with newly created historical pollution patterns derived from the locations of 5,000 industrial chimneys and an atmospheric model, we show that this results from the persistence of neighborhood sorting that ?rst emerged during the Industrial Revolution when prevailing winds blew pollution eastwards. Past pollution explains up to 20% of the observed neighborhood segregation in 2011, even though coal pollution stopped in the 1970s. A quantitative model identi?es the role of non-linearities and tipping-like dynamics underlying this persistence.
Citation
Heblich , S , Trew , A & Zylberberg , Y 2018 ' East side story : historical pollution and persistent neighborhood sorting ' School of Economics and Finance Discussion Paper , no. 1613 , University of St Andrews , St Andrews .
ISSN
0962-4031Type
Working or discussion paper
Rights
Copyright (c)2016, the authors
Description
Revision invited at Journal of Political Economy Funding: This work was part-funded by the ESRC through the Applied Quantitative Methods Network: Phase II, grant number ES/K006460/1.Collections
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