Natural Amenities in Urban Space – a Geographically Weighted Regression Approach

Natural amenities play an important role in explaining intra-regional economic growth, because they increase the competition between places and the relative demand for housing. This paper shows that these relationships are strongly location-specific, such that the magnitude and the direction, of value assessments vary across the urban surface. The analysis in this study addresses spatial heterogeneity in the valuations of preserved open space amenities using Swedish house price data. The results show that marginal valuations of open space amenities are high in locations that are characterised by high population and housing densities and low or insignificant in areas where undeveloped lands are abundant, thus, supporting the hypothesis that a greater competition for those, locational attributes that are in high demand, yet locally scarce, results in higher marginal prices. (C) 2013 Published by Elsevier B.V.