The role of urban parks in cities’ quality of life Sandra Vieira Gomes PhD in Civil Engineering Teresa Florentino PhD in Information and Knowledge Society

The role of urban parks in cities’ quality of life

Sandra Vieira GomesPhD in Civil Engineering

Teresa FlorentinoPhD in Information and Knowledge Society

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Escola Superior de Actividades ImobiliáriasPortugal

European Real Estate Society 22nd Annual Conference 24th-27th June 2015


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Parks have been important in the urban planning processes throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

In the nineteenth century, aesthetic values relating to the visual properties greatly influenced urban planning decisions.


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This view within urban planning expanded in popularity throughout the start of the early twentieth century.

In America, the City Beautiful movement advocated city beautification as a way to improve the living conditions and civic virtues of the urban dweller.

Parks, museums, recreational spaces, and architecturally appealing public buildings are some of the legacies of that movement


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The identification of benefits in the form of increased land values is important for the evaluation of parks and green spaces.

Many people get pleasure from a park without going into it, simply by appreciating it as scenery. City parks can provide many opportunities to a community.

Not only have urban parks provided a retreat from the noise and bustle of traffic and crowds, they have also provided a stage for a whole range of social activities.

Parks can often contribute to the safety, stability and vitality of the surrounding neighbourhood.


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Overcrowded and urbanized zones in many cities causes climatic deterioration intensified by the scarcity of parklands; grass is replaced by vast concrete surfaces where chains of buildings are built.

Energy balance is modified and this situation contributes to the storage of heat.

Air pollution is a significant and expensive urban problem, injuring health and damaging structures.

Urban parks, with its trees and shrubs remove air pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, ozone, and some particulates. Leaves absorb gases, and particulates adhere to the plant surface, at least temporarily.


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However, parks must be properly planned and maintained in order for them to be successful. If a park is not properly planned, it can often bring negative factors into the area.

Negative factors often associated with poorly planned urban parks include crime, noise and congestion.

Poorly planned parks can also limit certain types of people from accessing the park such as the elderly or children.


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THE VALUE OF URBAN PARKS

A local public good can have an economic ripple effect on nearby properties and commerce.

The concept of hedonic or amenity pricing acknowledges that both property values and people’s spending behaviors can be affected by the presence of parks and green spaces.

Numerous studies have shown that appraised property values of homes that are adjacent to parks and open spaces are typically about 8 percent to 20 percent more than comparable properties elsewhere.


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Hedonic value is affected primarily by two factors:

• Distance from the park

While proximate value (“nearby-ness”) can be measured up to 600m from a large park, most of the value is within the first 150m.

• Quality of the park itself

- Beautiful natural resource parks with great trees, trails, meadows, and gardens are markedly valuable

- Parks with excellent recreational facilities are also desirable.


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Willingness to walk

An individual’s willingness to walk varies greatly depending on age, health, time availability, quality of surroundings, safety, climate, and many other factors:

• most won’t walk much more than 400m to a bus stop;

• but will walk up to a 800m to a commuter rail station;

• 400m it’s considered a reasonable distance “for parents taking toddlers and small children to a park for everyday outings and playground opportunities”

Studies of walking patterns are very important for planners to ensure an equitable distribution of parkland within a city.


Case study: Lisbon, Portugal

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Data

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Statistical data on housing

characteristics, from Census

(National Statistical Institute)

Housing sales

(Real Estate Agency LANE)

GIS


Spatial analysis of urban parks and housing characteristics in Lisbon

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1) Identify the locations were housing units density was higher, in order to relate them with the area were they are located.

Housing units per square meter in Lisbon


Monsanto Park

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2) Lisbon’s land use

The total area of this council is 85.05 km2, and green areas account for around 22% of it.


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Monsanto Forest Park is the larger green area of Lisbon, with almost 1000 ha (10 km2).

3) Different types of parks in Lisbon


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4) The distance between Lisbon’s housing units and urban parks was calculated.

It is possible to identify the areas that are further from urban parks.

Some of them are located in old/historical areas, with no space left for parks, however, other are associated with newer construction, with no attention paid to green areas.


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Modelling the relation between housing prices and distance to urban parks

The housing dataset used in this analysis comprises 613 houses that were put into the housing market in 2013, which are about 10% of the total house market for Lisbon.


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Apartments Villas

Average Minimum Maximum Average Minimum Maximum

Price (€) 617 797,47 47 800,00 3 995 000,00 1 909 456,79 280 000,00 9 500 000,00

Price/m2 3 006,45 1 260,16 9 296,48 3 190,83 700,00 7 539,68

Area (m2) 159,76 20,00 735,00 548,17 90,00 7 542,00

Nº of rooms 4,2 1,00 10,00 9,06 4,00 28,00

Nº of bedrooms 2,9 0,00 8,00 4,62 2,00 10,00

Nº of bathrooms 2,7 1,00 14,00 4,93 1,00 15,00

Summary statistics of the housing unit’s dataset


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In what concerns the dataset for the modelling task, it was necessary to identify the distance to the urban parks of each one of the housing units included in the dataset

Distance to parks of the housing units included in the dataset



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A classic linear model was used to analyse the existence of an influence

The performance of the models can be enhanced through the use of the analysis of the leverage point’s graph regarding the identification of atypical observations.

Leverage is used in analyses aimed at identifying those observations that are far away from corresponding average predictor values. In order to optimize the model, atypical observations were deleted.



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Coefficients Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)

Ln(0) 772305.1 48314.3 15.985 <2e-16

Distance (1) -346.6 253.4 -1.368 0.172

The functional form with better fitting was:

Price = β0 + β1.Distance

The significance level adopted was 10% (p-value < 0.1). The results from the linear model were:

The model presented a multiple R-squared of 0.1773.


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The independent variable Distance was not considered significant, with a p-value of 0.172, so there is no evidence that the distance to urban parks is influencing the housing prices.

This result is not new: Buffington (2000) studied the correlation between the urban parks and residential property value in the city of Rochester, Minnesota.

The author concluded that, although the parks do provide many of the key factors leading to strong social values, the parks in Rochester do not give positive correlation to property or building values.

Mention must be made to the fact that the dataset was rather small (about 10%) when compare to the full house market, so better results might be achieved with a bigger dataset.


Final Notes

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The analysis presented in this study aims to contribute to the scientific knowledge of the relation between housing prices and distance to urban parks in Portugal

In order to achieve these goals, a geocoded accident database was developed, which allowed a fast extraction of relevant information on a geographical basis.

The modelling task revealed there is no evidence that the distance to urban parks.


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This information can be used to promote the attractiveness of housing units if they are located near urban parks, with an associated price increase.

From the modelling task it was concluded that the distance to urban parks has some influence in housing prices.

Final Notes (cont.)


Thank you

Sandra Vieira [email protected]

Teresa [email protected]

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The role of urban parks in cities’ quality of life Sandra Vieira Gomes PhD in Civil Engineering Teresa Florentino PhD in Information and Knowledge Society