Port of Richmond Feasibility Study with San Francisco State University

Chenghao (Matt) Hu

Department of Economics, San Francisco State University, California, USA

 

Introduction:

Why are some areas in the city of Richmond more deprived than others? Specifically, why is there “neighborhood sorting” or poor households clustering in certain geographical regions? When does the “neighborhood sorting” occur? How does this “neighborhood sorting” relate to the Richmond Port development? (i.e., what percentage of the disparity can be attributed to the “port exposure”) To answer these questions, first, we would like to develop a measure of “port exposure” for each dis-aggregated neighborhood in the city of Richmond, reflecting the local economy’s nexus with the port business activities. Second, we would like to use unique , neighborhood-level panel data to study how each neighborhood’s “port-exposure” is connected to the neighborhood’s social/economic development. Third, we would also like to investigate the impact of Covid-19 in shaping the local social/economic development disparity due to “port” exposure.

 

This project will be one of the first to present a study of port development vs. local economic disparity using historical economic and social data, which sheds light on the development of the internal structure of the city of Richmond. While existing studies generally  indicate a positive effect of infrastructure investment such as airports, highways, or high-speed railroads in driving the prosperity of the local economy (usually, the analysis is carried out using aggregated data, i.e., country, states), relatively little is know about the consequences of seaport development on local social & economic development, especially at a fine spatial scale. To fill this gap, we will use the city of Richmond, CA, as a cast study, employing neighborhood data to examine the impact of seaport development on local social/economic development.