Three Essays in Spatial Economics: Agglomeration Effects and Urban Transformatio

The thesis comprises three interconnected empirical essays that explore agglomeration economies and urban transformations across diverse spatial scales – from national industry (co)agglomeration patterns to cross-city changes in built-up land development in an emerging market, and further zooming into local neighborhood changes in a developed economy triggered by super-gentrification. The work advances our understanding of how proximity-driven economic benefits– manifesting either through agglomeration economies or amenity-driven spatial sorting– shape industrial geography, urban spatial structure, property markets and socio-economic outcomes. The first essay examines industrial (co)agglomeration patterns in Russia, an emerging market economy, to identify the mechanisms driving spatial concentration of manufacturing industries. Using detailed plant-level data, the study computes localization indices and finds that 80% of industries and industry pairs exhibit significant (co)agglomeration. By employing instrumental variables estimation, the analysis establishes a causal link between (co)agglomeration pattern and Marshallian agglomeration forces. Industry pairs with stronger buyer-supplier links tend to be slightly more coagglomerated. Additionally, consistent with theoretical predictions, industries with stronger input-output linkages are more likely to co-locate when transportation costs for their outputs are high. The documented patterns closely resemble those observed in developed economies, suggesting that technological relationships– rather than institutional context– primarily govern agglomeration dynamics, even in transitional economies. The second essay shifts focus to urban spatial restructuring in small and medium-sized Russian cities during the transition from a centrally planned to a market economy (1950-2020). Leveraging historical maps and satellite imagery, the study constructs 30-by-30 meter spatial grids to analyze built-up land development. Soviet-era cities exhibited compact growth, with development concentrated within 5-10 km of city centers and oriented around public transit. Post-1990, rising car ownership and road network expansion drove suburbanization, though growth remained constrained by affordable housing shortages and competitive land markets. Manufacturing plants retained central locations, reflecting path dependence in urban industrial geography. This work highlights how infrastructural and institutional shifts reshape urban form, offering insights into the challenges of post-socialist urban development. The third essay zooms into the neighborhood scale, examining the causal impact of New York City’s High Line---an elevated linear park---on super-gentrification in Manhattan’s West Chelsea district. Combining property sales data, floorplan-derived view analyses, buildings' and neighborhoods' information, the study quantifies the park’s localized effects. Results show a 12% sales price premium within 500m of the High Line post-opening, with 50% of this premium attributable to direct visual access. The amenity also spurred construction activity, building upgrades, and an influx of high-income residents, displacing middle-income groups. These findings underscore how urban renewal projects can exacerbate inequality in already gentrified areas, illustrating the dual role of green investments as both catalysts for revitalization and drivers of displacement. Collectively, the thesis contributes to empirical analysis on agglomeration economies, urban transitions, and gentrification. It demonstrates that agglomeration mechanisms (e.g., input-output linkages) operate consistently across institutional contexts, while urban spatial evolution is deeply shaped by infrastructural and economic shifts. At the neighborhood level, it reveals the hyper-localized socio-economic impacts of amenity-driven renewal. By leveraging detailed microgeographic data, this work advances empirical understanding of topics where evidence remains scarce– agglomeration mechanisms in emerging markets, such as Russia’s transitional economy, and the super-gentrification effects of amenity-driven spatial sorting observed in developed urban contexts.