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Variations in Park Facility Valuations across Neighborhoods

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Abstract

The obesity epidemic has renewed policy interest in provision of physical activity-enhancing park facilities. Public health researchers have noted variability in physical activity levels associated with different types of facilities. We assess the hedonic valuation of different types of park facilities. For homes located ¼ mile from the nearest park, the hedonic value of a 1/10 mile improvement in proximity ranges from an 1.3 % increase in home price in African American neighborhoods to a 0.3 % price reduction in “average” neighborhoods. Similar variation occurs across the home price distribution, park facilities, and neighborhood characteristics. Park funding implications are discussed.

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Notes

  1. For cases where parks have more than one facility, we include the distance to the park for each facility type.

  2. The direct effect of proximity to parks is given by the terms inside the square brackets in (3). Indirect effects work through the spatial multiplier, ρ, and exist because house prices are spatially correlated (LeSage and Pace 2009).

  3. There is some concern that the financial recession of 2007–2008 may have affected home sales in high/low income neighborhoods differently. However, the housing market in Dallas County was less affected than housing markets in other regions of the country. Additionally, comparative sales volume in low-, medium- and high- income neighborhoods in Dallas Country were approximately the same in 2008 as before the financial recession (i.e. 2005).

  4. The calculated semi-elasticities include only the direct effect of park proximity.

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We thank Wenyuan Yin and Christine Marx for outstanding GIS support.

Funding

This study was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Active Living Research (RWJ 68501)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Economics Department, University of Dallas, 1845 Northgate Drive, Irving, TX, USA

    Tammy Leonard

  2. Agribusiness and Applied Economics Department, North Dakota State University, 811 2nd Avenue N, Fargo, ND 58102, North Dakota, USA

    Lei Zhang

  3. Washington University School of Medicine, 660S. Euclid Avenue, St. Louis, Washington, MO, USA

    Christy Hoehner

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  1. Tammy Leonard
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  2. Lei Zhang
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  3. Christy Hoehner
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Correspondence to Tammy Leonard.

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Leonard, T., Zhang, L. & Hoehner, C. Variations in Park Facility Valuations across Neighborhoods. Appl. Spatial Analysis 8, 45–67 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12061-014-9120-4

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