# RECORD 6c554bbc30f053c6546ae8df71b70b126d3f4178 # TITLE: Evaluating the Impact of Urban Blue Space Accessibility on Housing Price: A Spatial Quantile Regression Approach Applied in Changsha, China # YEAR: 2021.0 VENUE: Frontiers in Environmental Science DOI: 10.3389/fenvs.2021.696626 # AUTHORS: Tuo-Fu Huang; Qing-Yun He; Dongxiao Yang; Xiao Ouyang # PAGES: 15 CANDIDATE TABLE PAGES (1-based): [8, 10] # ABSTRACT: Urban nature spaces are increasingly recognized as essential urban features providing crucial amenities to the residents’ health and well-being. While many studies have been conducted focusing on the influence of green spaces on house prices, very few have explored the impact of urban blue spaces. In this study, we analyzed the proximity effects of different types and sizes of urban blue spaces on property value in Changsha metropolis, China, and examined the spatial quantile effect across different housing prices. A two-stage instrumental method (2SLS) hedonic model was employed to evaluate the impact of different types of urban blue space: river (mainstream and tributary), wetland park, and lakes (large, medium, and small). Spatial quantile regression (SQR) was then used to measure the spatial effect of accessibility on various house price ranges. The 2SLS results show that, except for small-sized lakes, proximity to blue spaces significantly increases property value. Analysis of the SQR model reveals that proximity to major blue spaces increases the marginal willingness-to-pay among homebuyers of high-priced properties, while ordinary blue spaces are more attractive to buyers of low- and medium-priced houses. This may be broadly related to the level of education, utility, and sensitivity to ecosystem services across income groups. Based on these findings, we recommend that urban planners adopt different strategies to promote space utilization efficiency. This is one of the few studies that analyze the capitalization of blue space accessibility in house prices across different quantiles. By categorizing blue spaces and employing the SQR model, this study found the effect of blue spaces on housing prices to be heterogeneous, providing new perspectives to the existing literature. ===== PAGE 1 (score 14, numeric-paren 0, table-words 0, var-words 14) ===== Evaluating the Impact of Urban Blue Space Accessibility on Housing Price: A Spatial Quantile Regression Approach Applied in Changsha, China Huang Tuofu 1, He Qingyun 1*, Yang Dongxiao 2 and Ouyang Xiao 3 1College of Geographic Science, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, China, 2School of Economics and Trade, Hunan University, Changsha, China, 3Hunan Institute of Economic Geography, Hunan University of Finance and Economics, Changsha, China Urban nature spaces are increasingly recognized as essential urban features providing crucial amenities to the residents’ health and well-being. While many studies have been conducted focusing on the influence of green spaces on house prices, very few have explored the impact of urban blue spaces. In this study, we analyzed the proximity effects of different types and sizes of urban blue spaces on property value in Changsha metropolis, China, and examined the spatial quantile effect across different housing prices. A two-stage instrumental method (2SLS) hedonic model was employed to evaluate the impact of different types of urban blue space: river (mainstream and tributary), wetland park, and lakes (large, medium, and small). Spatial quantile regression (SQR) was then used to measure the spatial effect of accessibility on various house price ranges. The 2SLS results show that, except for small-sized lakes, proximity to blue spaces significantly increases property value. Analysis of the SQR model reveals that proximity to major blue spaces increases the marginal willingness-to-pay among homebuyers of high-priced properties, while ordinary blue spaces are more attractive to buyers of low- and medium-priced houses. This may be broadly related to the level of education, utility, and sensitivity to ecosystem services across income groups. Based on these findings, we recommend that urban planners adopt different strategies to promote space utilization efficiency. This is one of the few studies that analyze the capitalization of blue space accessibility in house prices across different quantiles. By categorizing blue spaces and employing the SQR model, this study found the effect of blue spaces on housing prices to be heterogeneous, providing new perspectives to the existing literature. Keywords: blue space, housing price, spatial quantile regression, accessibility, urban China INTRODUCTION In the process of intensified urbanization across modern China, the well-being of residents faces numerous challenges. Deteriorating ecological environment, unhealthy lifestyle, and highly competitive employment market (Wu Q. et al., 2020, Wu et al., 2021), have put significant pressure and risks on the urban population’s health and well-being. In response to these social Edited by: Yanfei Li, Hunan University of Technology and Business, China Reviewed by: Han Li, University of Miami, United States He Nie, National University of Singapore, Singapore Chen Ziyue, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway *Correspondence: He Qingyun heqingyun1848@gmail.com Specialty section: This article was submitted to Environmental Economics and Management, a section of the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science Received: 17 April 2021 Accepted: 03 May 2021 Published: 20 May 2021 Citation: Tuofu H, Qingyun H, Dongxiao Y and Xiao O (2021) Evaluating the Impact of Urban Blue Space Accessibility on Housing Price: A Spatial Quantile Regression Approach Applied in Changsha, China. Front. Environ. Sci. 9:696626. doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2021.696626 Frontiers in Environmental Science | www.frontiersin.org May 2021 | Volume 9 | Article 696626 1 ORIGINAL RESEARCH published: 20 May 2021 doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2021.696626 ===== PAGE 8 (score 186, numeric-paren 132, table-words 5, var-words 7) ===== been corrected to a certain extent in the 2sls model and that the use of instrumental variables in the spatial 2sls model is needed to circumvent endogeneity. Based on the regression coefficients of the spatial lag term, we found that the 30–90 quantile is significant at the 10% level, and the spatial dependence coefficient increases significantly with the increase of the quantile (from 0.013 to 0.087). This indicates a more pronounced spatial dependence in high-priced housing. The confidence interval above the 50th quantile exceeds the 2SLS conditional mean of 0.022, indicating that the 2SLS results may overestimate the spatial dependence of low-priced houses and underestimate the high-priced houses. Blue Space of Changsha The results in Table 4 show that the Xiangjiang River has a significant impact on property value, with distance negatively correlated with price. Each kilometer increase in the distance to Xiangjiang River correlated with a decline of about 1.72% in property value (i.e., 210 RMB per m2). The capitalization effect of the Xiangjiang River (less than Yanghu wetland) was not consistent with its status as the center of the nature landscape in Changsha, which may due to increased flood risk. In 2017, the Xiangjiang River experienced flooding, resulting in economic losses for residents. Recent flood events can significantly alter people’s perception and behavior towards flood risks (Bin and Polasky, 2004). With respect to the different housing prices, proximity to the Xiangjiang only has a significant impact above the 70th quartile, peaking at 90th (from 2.36% to 3.14%, each km). This suggests that nearness to the Xiangjiang river affects mainly house prices for high-value properties. This heterogeneity in proximity effects may be caused by better river scenarios and increased safety found mainly in high- value properties, similar to the conclusions of Wu Q. et al. (2020). The Liuyang River is a tributary of the Xiangjiang River, flowing through the entire eastern part of the city, and is an TABLE 3 | OLS and QR model results. Variable OLS (1) 0.1 (2) 0.2 (3) 0.3 (4) 0.4 (5) 0.5 (6) 0.6 (7) 0.7 (8) 0.8 (9) 0.9 (10) Floor area –0.015 0.0126 0.00578 –0.0059 –0.0127 –0.0228* –0.0292** –0.0239** –0.0390*** –0.0469*** [0.0107] [0.0170] [0.0122] [0.0128] [0.0124] [0.0122] [0.0123] [0.0117] [0.0133] [0.0160] Plot ratio –0.0056** –0.0042* –0.0051*** –0.0066*** –0.0072** –0.0078** –0.0072* –0.0013 –0.0035 –0.0056*** [0.0023] [0.0019] [0.0019] [0.0019] [0.0026] [0.0028] [0.0043] [0.0045] [0.0042] [0.0033] PM 0.0129*** 0.0207*** 0.0205*** 0.0198*** 0.0158*** 0.0138*** 0.0148*** 0.00982* 0.00575 0.00663 [0.0036] [0.0069] [0.0060] [0.0036] [0.0027] [0.0038] [0.0040] [0.0050] [0.0068] [0.0060] Building age –0.0016*** –0.0027*** –0.0026*** –0.0028*** –0.0025*** –0.0022*** –0.0018*** –0.0016*** –0.00080*** –0.00057*** [0.0001] [0.0002] [0.0001] [0.0001] [0.0001] [0.0001] [0.0001] [0.0001] [0.0001] [0.0001] QMS 0.0834*** 0.0495*** 0.0510*** 0.0644*** 0.0750*** 0.0739*** 0.0781*** 0.0827*** 0.0845*** 0.0979*** [0.0109] [0.0189] [0.0167] [0.0150] [0.0171] [0.0171] [0.0131] [0.0188] [0.0175] [0.0167] QPS 0.0294** 0.0427** 0.0222 0.0235* 0.0177 0.0157 0.0274*** 0.0389*** 0.0468*** 0.0299* [0.0118] [0.0192] [0.0232] [0.0164] [0.0187] [0.0170] [0.0167] [0.0158] [0.0152] [0.0174] Subway 0.0481*** 0.0606*** 0.0417*** 0.0451*** 0.0500** 0.0612*** 0.0553*** 0.0690*** 0.0480** 0.00169 [0.0129] [0.0264] [0.0211] [0.0184] [0.0197] [0.0226] [0.0180] [0.0178] [0.0216] [0.0256] LF 0.0081*** 0.0097*** 0.0031*** 0.0035*** 0.0041*** 0.0045*** 0.0034*** 0.0039*** 0.0083*** 0.0159*** [0.0003] [0.0005] [0.0006] [0.0005] [0.0004] [0.0004] [0.0003] [0.0003] [0.0004] [0.0005] Dcbd –0.0625** –0.103*** –0.0675*** –0.060** –0.069* –0.0705** –0.0615*** –0.0489** –0.03295 –0.054 [0.0290] [0.0331] [0.0395] [0.0302] [0.0297] [0.0333] [0.0323] [0.0195] [0.0505] [0.0813] D.Xriver –0.0168*** –0.0125 –0.0085 0.00265 0.00066 –0.0064 –0.0087 –0.013* –0.0252** –0.0280** [0.0056] [0.0111] [0.0083] [0.0072] [0.0061] [0.0078] [0.0072] [0.0071] [0.0097] [0.0083] D.Lriver –0.0245** –0.0357 –0.0318** –0.0315*** –0.0263*** –0.0223*** –0.01385 –0.0075 –0.0025 –0.0171 [0.0120] [0.0224] [0.0158] [0.0119] [0.0083] [0.0061] [0.0371] [0.0435] [0.0446] [0.0537] D.YHwetland –0.0251*** –0.00795 –0.0183** –0.0166* –0.0235** –0.0273*** –0.0299*** –0.0312*** –0.0405*** –0.0420*** [0.0049] [0.0097] [0.0101] [0.0092] [0.0095] [0.0087] [0.0086] [0.0069] [0.0067] [0.0084] D.LL –0.0173*** 0.00134 –0.0156 –0.0164 –0.0205* –0.0207** –0.0223** –0.0243*** –0.0209** –0.0319*** [0.0066] [0.0181] [0.0131] [0.0121] [0.0089] [0.0069] [0.0052] [0.0068] [0.0077] [0.0105] D.ML –0.0143*** –0.0344*** –0.0156 –0.0039 –0.0014 –0.004 –0.0082 –0.0066 –0.0053 –0.0019 [0.0045] [0.0108] [0.0098] [0.0048] [0.0043] [0.0045] [0.0055] [0.0052] [0.0048] [0.0058] D.SL –0.0124 –0.0214 0.00524 –0.0001 0.0044 0.00533 –0.0113 –0.0118 –0.0098 –0.0421 [0.0167] [0.0260] [0.0288] [0.0212] [0.0241] [0.0216] [0.0139] [0.0183] [0.0293] [0.0378] D.YL –0.0234*** –0.0277*** –0.0323*** –0.0349*** –0.0311*** –0.0281*** –0.0251*** –0.0190** –0.0182** –0.0212** [0.0045] [0.0068] [0.0068] [0.0056] [0.0037] [0.0052] [0.0044] [0.0078] [0.0061] [0.0073] D.NWG –0.0124*** –0.0082*** –0.0108*** –0.0861*** 0.0089*** –0.0138*** –0.0135*** –0.0131*** –0.0095*** –0.0054 [0.0047] [0.0021] [0.0022] [0.0015] [0.0022] [0.0024] [0.0022] [0.0026] [0.0026] [0.0038] Cons 9.603*** 9.136*** 9.503*** 9.502*** 9.596*** 9.734*** 9.738*** 9.701*** 9.836*** 10.14*** [0.1021] [0.2057] [0.2139] [0.1399] [0.1168] [0.1379] [0.1226] [0.1027] [0.1305] [0.1737] Adj.R2 0.519 Pseudo-R2 0.321 0.307 0.313 0.346 0.331 0.358 0.329 0.343 0.341 ***p < 0.01; **p < 0.05; *p < 0.10 Frontiers in Environmental Science | www.frontiersin.org May 2021 | Volume 9 | Article 696626 8 Tuofu et al. Evaluate the Impact of Urban Blue ===== PAGE 9 (score 14, numeric-paren 0, table-words 2, var-words 9) ===== important blue space in Changsha. As shown in Table 4, proximity to the Liuyang River has a significant impact on housing prices (at the 10% level), with a 2SLS conditional mean regression coefficient of 2.36% value decline per km. The SQR results show that only low and medium-priced houses (i.e., 30th–50th quantile) are affected by proximity to this river. Proximity to the Yanghu National Wetland Park was also found to significantly affect housing prices, similar to the findings of Mei et al. (2018), with every kilometer distance correlating with a 2.27% decline in housing prices (equivalent to 277 RMB per m2). Similar to the effects of the Xiangjiang River, the SQR shows that the price effect caused by proximity to the Yanghu wetland increases as the quantile rises and is most pronounced for high- value properties (From 1.53% to 2.85%). Yanghu National Wetland Park was found to have a strong effect on housing prices among the different landscape factors in Changsha and has an estimated coefficient almost higher than any blue and green space. This may suggest wetlands are increasingly becoming more valued in cities. While urban lake is the most common blue space in the city, our results found noticeable differences between varying sizes. The conditional mean coefficient of large lakes (LL) using 2sls was 1.66% value loss per km (i.e., 202 RMB per m2), significant at the 1% level, and is higher than most landscape coefficients. LL has a significant impact on house prices above the 40th quantile. The estimated LL coefficients increased significantly, especially for mid-to-high-priced housing above the 60–70 range (2.31%, 2.35%, respectively), similar to the impact of wetland parks and the Xiangjiang River landscape. The impact of medium lakes (ML) was significant at the 10% level, resulting in a 1.45% value decline per km. The ML coefficient value was smaller than for large lakes and had a nonlinear trend across quantiles. According to the SQR, ML affected house prices below the 10th quantile but had no significant impact on those above the 10th quantile. Small lake (SL) is the commonest blue space in Changsha city. Although SL has a negative coefficient, the variable was not statistically significant. Housing prices seem to be unaffected by small water bodies, which is in sharp contrast to the impact on price of other kinds of blue space. Green Spaces in Changsha For comparison, we used the non-water body green spaces as the control variables. As shown in Table 4, the conditional mean loss of property value for the Yuelu Forest Park was 2.03% per km, relatively similar to some previous studies of forest parks (Czembrowski and Kronenberg, 2016). The SQR results show that proximity to the Yuelu forest does not significantly influence house prices above the 80th quantile. For the other common green spaces, their impact was found to have a noticeable steady trend. The 2SLS results were significant at the 1% level, with a value loss of 1.21%. Most of the quantile coefficients for non- water green spaces were higher. These findings are consistent with existing studies (Liao and Wang, 2012), and the estimated accessibility coefficient is also comparatively similar. FIGURE 2 | Coefficients of blue spaces estimated by QR. Frontiers in Environmental Science | www.frontiersin.org May 2021 | Volume 9 | Article 696626 9 Tuofu et al. Evaluate the Impact of Urban Blue ===== PAGE 10 (score 190, numeric-paren 129, table-words 6, var-words 10) ===== Other Key Variables The study also found that the housing price gradient can diversify with the distance from the CBD (Wen et al., 2014). By 2SLS, each kilometer away from the CBD leads to a 5.75% decay of house prices. The SQR results showed that the price for accessibility to the CBD decreases for higher quantiles (from 13.65% to 3.81%, each km). Low- and medium-priced properties were influenced more strongly by CBD than high-priced houses. Neighborhood variables, such as proximity to quality primary and middle education facilities (2.80% and 8.17%, respectively) and nearness to a subway station (4.72%), were also found to have significant impact on housing prices. These results suggest education-related factors are becoming important factors affecting property house prices in China. Density Test of Urban Blue Accessibility As suggested by Coulson and McMillen (2007), the distribution of house prices varying to the explanatory variables could exam the heterogeneity across dependent variable quantiles. If a change in the value of the independent variable (distance) causes a change in the dependent variable’s distribution, this would mean that different quantiles would have varying responses to the independent variable and that heteroscedasticity exists across different quantiles. To investigate this effect, we drew the kernel density curve to compare the distribution of prices among varying accessibility to various urban blue parameters. The results are presented in Figure 4. For the Xiangjiang River, the kernel curve changes its kurtosis as the distance increases. Similarly, the parameters Liuyang river, Yanghu wetland, large lakes, and middle lakes have a significant change in the distribution of housing prices when the value of accessibility independent variable changing. Most have changes in the kurtosis (right tail of the distribution), with some increase in variance distribution, coincident with the SQR results. In contrast, the kernel density curve for small lakes has little distributional change, which means no heteroscedasticity in this variable. TABLE 4 | 2Stage Least Squares and SQR model results. Variable 2SLS (1) 0.1 (2) 0.2 (3) 0.3 (4) 0.4 (5) 0.5 (6) 0.6 (7) 0.7 (8) 0.8 (9) 0.9 (10) Floor area –0.0153 0.0099 0.00319 –0.00587 –0.0131 –0.0224* –0.0273** –0.0278** –0.0436** –0.0566** [0.0147] [0.0138] [0.0147] [0.0120] [0.0094] [0.0098] [0.0080] [0.0125] [0.0160] [0.0219] Plot ratio –0.00549** –0.00525** –0.005** –0.00677*** –0.00704* –0.00759 –0.00684 –0.00135 –0.00263 –0.0065 [0.0023] [0.0021] [0.0024] [0.0027] [0.0023] [0.0041] [0.0045] [0.0048] [0.0037] [0.0040] PM 0.0129*** 0.0212*** 0.0211*** 0.0199*** 0.0159*** 0.0143*** 0.0143*** 0.0103** 0.00461 –0.000734 [0.0036] [0.0050] [0.0045] [0.0037] [0.0044] [0.0056] [0.0053] [0.0045] [0.0072] [0.0046] Building age –0.0015*** –0.0026*** –0.0024*** –0.0026*** –0.0024*** –0.0021*** –0.0020*** –0.0017*** –0.0009*** –0.0006*** [0.0001] [0.0002] [0.0001] [0.0001] [0.0001] [0.0001] [0.0001] [0.0001] [0.0001] [0.0001] QMS 0.0817*** 0.0623*** 0.0478** 0.0653*** 0.0705*** 0.0669*** 0.0743*** 0.0797*** 0.0773*** 0.0981*** [0.0111] [0.0210] [0.0145] [0.0115] [0.0136] [0.0099] [0.0127] [0.0134] [0.0124] [0.0164] QPS 0.0280** 0.0503*** 0.0208 0.0244 0.0182 0.0104 0.0236* 0.0348** 0.0462** 0.0342 [0.0119] [0.0136] [0.0140] [0.0149] [0.0134] [0.0178] [0.0138] [0.0161] [0.0156] [0.0306] Subway 0.0472*** 0.0534*** 0.0470*** 0.0417** 0.0475*** 0.0573*** 0.0553*** 0.0707*** 0.0444* 0.0165 [0.0129] [0.0220] [0.0178] [0.0142] [0.0196] [0.0216] [0.0183] [0.0200] [0.0205] [0.0230] LF 0.0079*** 0.0113*** 0.0033*** 0.0031*** 0.0045*** 0.0056*** 0.0023*** 0.0045*** 0.0073*** 0.0125*** [0.0003] [0.0006] [0.0007] [0.0006] [0.0005] [0.0004] [0.0003] [0.0003] [0.0004] [0.0007] D.CBD –0.0575** –0.1365*** –0.079*** –0.0595*** –0.0672*** –0.0557* –0.0555** –0.0381** –0.00635 –0.0417 [0.0267] [0.0450] [0.0271] [0.0202] [0.0266] [0.0291] [0.0274] [0.0224] [0.0507] [0.0984] D.Xriver –0.0172*** –0.0128 –0.00706 0.0004 –0.0007 –0.0073 –0.0066 –0.0115 –0.0236** –0.0314*** [0.0057] [0.0106] [0.0084] [0.0071] [0.0086] [0.0091] [0.0097] [0.0135] [0.0132] [0.0097] D.Lriver –0.0236** –0.0312 –0.0325 –0.0221** –0.0252*** –0.0214*** –0.0112 –0.0062 –0.0015 –0.0083 [0.0118] [0.0512] [0.0529] [0.0111] [0.0104] [0.0081] [0.0261] [0.0263] [0.0363] [0.0543] D.YHwetland –0.0227*** –0.0125 –0.0153* –0.0171** –0.0222*** –0.0237*** –0.0235*** –0.0215* –0.0260** –0.0285*** [0.0056] [0.0099] [0.0081] [0.0069] [0.0067] [0.0071] [0.0095] [0.0086] [0.0071] [0.0073] D.LL –0.0166** –0.0074 –0.0189 –0.0152 –0.0210** –0.0179** –0.0231*** –0.0235*** –0.0195*** –0.0143* [0.0008] [0.0011] [0.0184] [0.0181] [0.0103] [0.0087] [0.0095] [0.0093] [0.0077] [0.0081] D.ML –0.0145* –0.0332** –0.0159 –0.0051 –0.0013 –0.0038 –0.0071 –0.0051 –0.0049 –0.0050 [0.0085] [0.0137] [0.0122] [0.0066] [0.0066] [0.0047] [0.0050] [0.0048] [0.0055] [0.0041] D.SL –0.0128 –0.0207 0.00136 –0.0065 0.00368 –0.0008 –0.0107 –0.0137 –0.0218 –0.029 [0.0167] [0.0267] [0.0216] [0.0231] [0.0220] [0.0228] [0.0227] [0.0284] [0.0284] [0.0345] D.YL –0.0203*** –0.0424*** –0.0373*** –0.0320*** –0.0285*** –0.0211*** –0.0214*** –0.0176* –0.0066 –0.00744 [0.0058] [0.0084] [0.0085] [0.0073] [0.0077] [0.0072] [0.0066] [0.0103] [0.0118] [0.0111] D.NWG –0.0121*** 0.0043 –0.005 –0.0082** -0.0091** –0.0155*** –0.0164*** –0.0183*** –0.0114*** –0.00907 [0.0017] [0.0032] [0.0034] [0.0025] [0.0014] [0.0018] [0.0021] [0.0022] [0.0030] [0.0301] WlnP 0.0221** –0.0028 –0.0072 0.0136* 0.0152* 0.0443** 0.0468** 0.0447*** 0.0809*** 0.0874*** [0.0121] [0.0076] [0.0084] [0.0081] [0.0091] [0.0223] [0.0232] [0.0192] [0.0231] [0.0157] Cons 9.364*** 10.18*** 9.799*** 9.377*** 9.444*** 9.236*** 9.273*** 9.214*** 8.895*** 9.047*** [0.2961] [0.3726] [0.4683] [0.3900] [0.3734] [0.3357] [0.3232] [0.3933] [0.6152] [0.6469] Adj.R2 0.531 Pseudo-R2 0.335 0.311 0.329 0.352 0.341 0.367 0.339 0.361 0.353 ***p < 0.01; **p < 0.05; *p < 0.10. Frontiers in Environmental Science | www.frontiersin.org May 2021 | Volume 9 | Article 696626 10 Tuofu et al. Evaluate the Impact of Urban Blue ===== PAGE 11 (score 0, numeric-paren 0, table-words 0, var-words 0) ===== FIGURE 3 | Coefficients of blue spaces estimated by 2SQR. FIGURE 4 | Shifts in the distribution of house prices. Frontiers in Environmental Science | www.frontiersin.org May 2021 | Volume 9 | Article 696626 11 Tuofu et al. Evaluate the Impact of Urban Blue