Benefits of Compact, Mixed Use Development

­­­­­­­This report aimed to determine what effect urban density has on innovation. The authors used patents per capita as a proxy, with over 530,000 patents assigned to addresses from over 200 counties or metropolitan areas. Urbanized area was defined as continuously built-up areas with at least 50,000 residents and with adjacent areas of at least 1,000 persons/sq mile. It also considered employment density, using numbers based on both place of residence and place of employment. Since patent intensity can vary by industry, they factored in multiple controls to account for these variations, such as categorizing the patents based on industry. They also controlled trade secrecy, demographic variation, and percent change in employment. Their calculations found that a city with twice the employment density of another city will feature a 20% greater patent intensity.