The influence of quality of life on urban growth. A case study of Barcelona

Esther Vaya Valcarce (1)

1 Departament d'Econometria, Estadistica i Economia Espanyola

There are several determinants that influence household location decisions and, consequently, the growth of the cities. More concretely, recent economic literature assigns an increasingly important role to the variables governing quality of life. In the theoretical background of many of these works, it is usually assumed free migration across cities, what implies a spatial equilibrium. In this line, the spatial stationarity of the parameters is implicitly assumed in most studies. Here we analyse the role of quality of life in urban economics and test for the spatial stationarity of the relationship between city growth and quality of life in a local framework, Barcelona (Spain).

Mots clés: Social Sciences & Humanities

Esther Vaya Valcarce. The influence of quality of life on urban growth. A case study of Barcelona. Regional Studies, 2010, 44 (05), pp.551-567. ⟨10.1080/00343400802662682⟩. ⟨hal-00596607⟩