Rideshare companies Uber and Lyft have fundamentally changed how people move through cities by providing on-demand, direct transportation with upfront pricing estimates, driver ratings and more. New research from Northeastern University finds that the rideshare companies, which introduced a new transportation method that uses privately owned vehicles for trips on existing roads, have also changed the way American cities develop, by inducing sprawl.
“They elevated the value of the existing infrastructure for the periphery (of cities),” said Daniel O’Brien, professor of public policy and urban affairs and criminology and criminal justice at Northeastern who collaborated on the new research. O’Brien is also the director of the Boston Area Research Initiative, which conducts collaborative research with, and for the benefit of, local communities. “That in turn makes the periphery more valuable,” O’Brien continued. “Then people start investing in the periphery and you see more development.”
