Abstract
Green spaces, or public parks, playgrounds, and athletic fields, are a community hub. Many studies have highlighted the benefits of green space on surrounding neighborhoods. However, comparatively little research has assessed the relationship between park proximity and housing sales price. In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, city officials have shown a renewed interest in increasing park access and quality, although no economic literature has examined role of green space in the housing consumption decision in the city. I develop a theory of green space preference in a consumer maximization framework to hypothesize that home prices will increase with proximity to green space. I then use a Spatial Auto-Regressive Moving Average (SARMA) model to estimate the impact of green space proximity on single family home sales prices in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. My results show that house sales prices will decrease by 2.34% with each additional mile from green space. This indicates a price premium on access to green space, further exacerbating inequalities between high and low socioeconomic status neighborhoods. This research highlights the need for additional research into environmental justice topics in Pittsburgh.
Advisor
Luri, Moses
Department
Economics
Recommended Citation
McCullough, Will, "The Great Outdoors, Indoors: An Evaluation of Green Spaces and Housing Prices in Pittsburgh, PA" (2021). Senior Independent Study Theses. Paper 9589.
https://openworks.wooster.edu/independentstudy/9589
Disciplines
Regional Economics | Urban Studies and Planning
Keywords
Green Space, Parks, Hedonic Pricing, Housing Prices, Spatial Econometrics
Publication Date
2021
Degree Granted
Bachelor of Arts
Document Type
Senior Independent Study Thesis Exemplar
Stata Dataset of Housing Price Data
McCullough Home Locational Data.shp (10498 kB)
© Copyright 2021 Will McCullough