About this book
Environmental quality is one of the most important issues faced by contemporary urban and regional policy. Amenities such as access to the natural environment, attractive neighbourhood characteristics and high quality public goods and services, play a direct role in determining where people choose to live and how much they are willing to do so. Likewise, negative environmental conditions, such as contamination, influence the real estate markets and the 'value' of a region. Increasingly, regions become winners or losers based on the quality of life they offer their inhabitants.
Bringing together a team of leading scholars, this book addresses the issues of environmental valuation, answering questions such as: What kinds of features matter? How large of an affect do they have? How do they affect the spatial distribution of the population? And how should the value that people place on their environment affect urban and regional policy?
Contents
Interregional Perspectives: Environmental valuation: connecting theory, empirical evidence, and public policy, John I. Carruthers and Gordon F. Mulligan; Environmental valuation using cross-city hedonic methods, Matthew E. Kahn; Amenity valuation and migration behaviour, Roxanne Ezzet-Loftstrom; Amenity valuation, incomplete compensation, and migration, David E. Clark; The impact of public services on quality of life and housing markets, Robyn K. Welch and Brigitte S. Waldorf; Intraregional Perspectives: Environmental valuation and house values, Katherine A. Kiel; The benefits of environmental improvements in a low-income area: the Grand Calumet River dredging plan in Gary, Indiana, Daniel P. McMillen; Capitalization of environmental amenities at the urban-rural fringe, Diane Hite and Brent Sohngen; Remotely sensed proxies for environmental amenities in hedonic analysis: what does "green" mean?, Rosalind Bark-Hodgins, Daniel E. Osgood, and Bonnie G. Colby; Maximizing the value of greenways: the case of the Catawba regional trail in the Carolinas, Darla K. Munroe; The valuation of wetlands: primary versus meta-analysis based value transfer, Luke M. Brander and Raymond J.G.M. Florax; Valuing amenities of new urbanist communities, Yan Song and Gerrit-Jan Knaap; A note on the valuation of jurisdictional-level infrastructure and services, Shishir Mathur; Some closing thoughts on the study of environmental valuation, John I. Carruthers and Bill Mundy.
Customer Reviews
Biography
John I. Carruthers, PhD. is an Economist in the Economic Development and Public Finance Division of the Office of Policy Research and Development at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. He is also an Affiliate Assistant Professor in the Department of Urban Design and Planning at the University of Washington. Dr Carruthers' research interests include urban and regional policy, regional development, urban quality of life, land use governance, urban growth management, and public finance. Bill Mundy, PhD, MAI, CRE has over 40 years of experience in real estate consulting, expert witness testimony, economic research, and valuation analysis. He is a nationally and internationally recognized expert in the valuation of environmentally contaminated property, non-market valuation methods, and preservation easements. He now serves as Director Emeritus of Greenfield Advisors.