THRESHOLD EFFECTS AND THE EXPECTED BENEFITS OF ATTRACTING MIDDLE-INCOME HOUSEHOLDS TO THE CENTRAL CITY

Although stressing that this work is only tentative and intended to be provocative, we cautiously conclude that thresholds matter. That is, it is likely that the number of middle-income households in a given ar ea must exceed a certain threshold for significant benefits to accrue. The geographic scale of this area, the threshold that applies, and th e time needed for benefits to appear depend on the particular causal l inkage at issue. In the last section, we derive implications for resea rch and policy evaluation.