Topographical constraints and urban land supply indexes

Growth management and housing prices: the case of Portland, Oregon

“…Moreover, it is important to note that an initial increase in housing prices may create a "bull market" in which prices rise rapidly over a prolonged period of time. Case (1986Case ( , 1991 and Case and Shiller (1988, 1989, 1990) studied such housing markets, including those in Anaheim, San Francisco and Boston, in which the initial increase may very well result from the demand-side factors mentioned above; however, the subsequent upward movement in prices is primarily motivated by psychological forces, operating on top of economic fundamentals. If it is assumed that housing consumers (who are also investors) look to observed price movements to form their future expectations of prices, one can certainly imagine a situation in which consumers scramble to purchase a home either because they think that it is a good time to buy or because they are afraid of being priced out of the market.…”

“…The topographical constraints variable measures the effect that surrounding bodies of water have on the supply of developable land available within or near a metropolitan area. The index used here was created by Rose (1989). The values assigned to different metropolitan areas fluctuate between 1 (for Atlanta, GA), which means that the supply of developable land is in no way limited by bodies of water, to .470 for Honolulu, indicating that its urban land supply is 47% of what would be available in the absence of water restrictions (Rose, 1989, p. 343).…”

Growth management and housing prices: the case of Portland, Oregon

“…Case (1986Case ( , 1991 and Case and Shiller (1988, 1989, 1990) studied such housing markets, including those in Anaheim, San Francisco and Boston, in which the initial increase may very well result from the demand-side factors mentioned above; however, the subsequent upward movement in prices is primarily motivated by psychological forces, operating on top of economic fundamentals. If it is assumed that housing consumers (who are also investors) look to observed price movements to form their future expectations of prices, one can certainly imagine a situation in which consumers scramble to purchase a home either because they think that it is a good time to buy or because they are afraid of being priced out of the market.…”

The Z-Axis: Elevation Gradient Effects in Urban America

“…Rappaport (2007) models nice weather as a consumption commodity in explaining migration flows of US residents. The role of water bodies in urban economies have been investigated from perspectives such as the constraining of land supply due to lakes and oceans (Rose 1989) and the economic attractiveness of coastal living (Rappaport and Sachs 2003). Geographical boundaries have also been used instrumentally toward explaining disparities in the stimulative effects of local business policies (Briant, LaFourcade, and Schmutz 2015), to investigate cultural barriers to economic activity (Falck et al 2012), and to test for housing price response to local school quality (Gibbons, Machinb, and Silva 2013).…”