Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät

Prime locations

(c) Gabriel M. Ahlfeldt, Thilo. N. H. Albers, Kristian Behrens

Abstract: We develop a method for delineating prime locations---ultra-dense clusters of economic activity---within cities and apply it to comprehensive establishment data covering all US metropolitan areas. We further use big data to extend the analysis to a global context} where administrative data are sparse. Many cities in the US and around the world are dominated by a small number of prime locations that can concentrate up to one-half of tradable services jobs on tiny shares of land and are dominant centers of economic gravity. In cities with fewer prime locations, a larger tradable services share concentrates in them.

Webtool: Under the following links, you’ll find the output of the prime locations delineation algorithm as developed in our Prime Locations research paper (forthcoming in American Economic Review: Insights). Feel free to explore our prime location maps or jump directly to your MSA of interest using the drop-down menu. The underlying data is available for download under the condition that you cite our paper. 

This webtool is part of the AABPL GitHub toolkit which which offers further data sets for download as well as a Python version of our delineation algorithm.