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The Effect of Community Gardens on Neighboring Property Values
Author(s) -
Voicu Ioan,
Been Vicki
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
real estate economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.064
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1540-6229
pISSN - 1080-8620
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-6229.2008.00213.x
Subject(s) - economic shortage , property value , land values , property (philosophy) , quality (philosophy) , residential property , land use , significant difference , geography , economics , agricultural economics , economic geography , finance , ecology , mathematics , linguistics , philosophy , statistics , government (linguistics) , biology , real estate , epistemology
Cities across the United States that have considerable vacant land are debating whether to foster community gardens on that land, while cities with land shortages are debating when to replace gardens with other uses. Meanwhile, many cities are looking for new ways to finance green spaces. Little empirical evidence about the neighborhood impacts of community gardens is available, however, to inform the debate or to help cities design financing schemes. This article estimates the impact of community gardens on neighborhood property values, using rich data for New York City and a difference‐in‐difference specification of a hedonic regression model. We find that gardens have significant positive effects, especially in the poorest neighborhoods. Higher‐quality gardens have the greatest positive impact.