Valuing Environmental Amenities across Space: A Geographically Weighted Regression of Housing Preferences in Greenville County, SC

Abstract

As global consumption and development rates continue to grow, there will be persistent stress placed on public goods, namely environmental amenities. Urban sprawl and development places pressure on forested areas, as they are often displaced or degraded in the name of economic development. This is problematic because environmental amenities are valued by the public, but traditional market analysis typically obscures the value of these goods and services that are not explicitly traded in a market setting. This research examines the non-market value of environmental amenities in Greenville County, SC, by utilizing a hedonic price model of home sale data in 2011. We overlaid home sale data with 2011 National Land Cover Data to estimate the value of a forest view, proximity to a forest, and proximity to agriculture on the value of homes. We then ran two regression models, an ordinary least squares (OLS) and a geographically weighted regression to compare the impact of space on the hedonic model variables. Results show that citizens in Greenville County are willing to pay for environmental amenities, particularly views of a forest and proximity to forested and agricultural areas. However, the impact and directionality of these variables differ greatly across space. These findings suggest the need for an integration of spatial dynamics into environmental valuation estimates to inform conservation policy and intentional city planning.

Influence of urban forests on residential property values: A systematic review of remote sensing-based studies

“…In addition, other studies focused on grass cover reported a positive effect of proximity to the nearest moderate grassland area within 800 m of the property [ 19 ] and parcel and neighborhood irrigated grassland [ 34 , 42 ] on housing prices, while non-irrigated grass cover on the property had a negative effect on house prices [ 42 ]. Residents’ high horizontal view of green vegetation within minutes [ 60 ], 400 m [ 61 ], 160.9 m [ 62 ], 253 m [ 63 ] of the property were also reported to have positive effects on residential property values. Likewise, proximity to a national park had a positive effect on housing prices [ 64 ].…”

“…Most of the reviewed studies focused implicitly and/or explicitly on evaluating how recreation and aesthetic (cultural) services of urban forest types in neighborhoods influenced residential property values. Examples of such studies reported positive effects of resident green viewshed from windows [ [60] , [61] , [62] , [63] , 105 ] and proximity to urban forests types for hiking, biking, jogging, exercising, observing plants and animals [ 19 , 24 , 55 , 69 , 106 , 107 ] on housing prices. Urban forests also have direct health benefits to residents relating to improvement in psychological, emotional, physical, and mental health of urban residents [ 1 ].…”