The periurban city:: why to live between the suburbs and the countryside

The last 30 years have witnessed the emergence of a new pattern of urban development in France, called the periurban belt. It is defined as a belt outside the city occupied both by households and farmers. We develop a residential model in which households commuting to an employment center may choose to live with farmers in this mixed belt because they value the rural amenities created by farming activities. Both types of agents compete on the land market and the equilibrium conditions allow us to obtain an analytical solution and to provide some insights about the robustness of the periurban form against decreases in commuting costs. Finally, the model is calibrated on French data. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.