Consumption Amenities and City Crowdedness

Crowdedness varies widely among U.S. cities. A simple, static general equilibrium model suggests that plausible differences in metro areas’ consumption amenities can account for much of the observed variation. Under a baseline calibration, differences in amenities valued at 30 percent of average consumption expenditures suffice to support a twenty-fold difference in population density. Empirical results confirm that amenities help support crowdedness and suggest that they are becoming a more important determinant of where people choose to live. But for the moment, local productivity appears to be the more important cause of local crowdedness.