New urbanism and housing values: a disaggregate assessment

In this paper, we attempt a formal analysis of the virtues of new urbanism, a movement hailed as the most significant movement in urban planning and architecture in this century. We proceed using the tools of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to develop quantitative measures of urban form. We then incorporate those measures in a hedonic price analysis. We find that our measures of urban form capture meaningful differences in the characters of urban neighborhoods that could well have direct impacts on the utility of urban residents. Further, we find that such differences are capitalized into residential property values. The results imply that some but not all of the design features of new urbanism provide benefits for which urban residents are willing to pay. (C) 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.