A Perspective on Regional Advantage that Focuses on the Individual Experience

Citation:

The dissertation examines how individuals form expectations and beliefs about opportunities available in the place they live. Opportunities are a powerful motivator for human behavior in a place. Opportunities stimulate people to engage in social activities, initiate business ventures, pursue a better education, and other relevant behavior. Yet, no research in urban or regional development has empirically explored this concept at the individual level, its drivers and underlying mechanisms. The dissertation develops a model where “opportunity beliefs” areshaped both by objective information about economic conditions and resources in a place (i.e.employment, wages and housing costs) and by other place-specific characteristics, ranging fromits socio-demographic structure to its natural and recreational amenities. The model is testedusing a survey on place-related attitudes and beliefs conducted by the Gallup Organization in2006. The survey provides a dataset of 28,000 individuals located in various parts of the UnitedStates. The Gallup’s database has been integrated with actual city demographics and statisticsregarding each respondent’s city/location using data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the American Community Survey and other sources. This unique dataset combines individual characteristicsand responses and place-specific features.