Impact of Greenways on Property Values

Would you prefer the view outside your window to resemble this?

 

Or this?

While everyone is entitled to their own opinion for any given reason, I am willing to assume a large majority would prefer the first two "backyards" over the last two. This is because we place some degree of satisfaction in the presence of green areas, whether it is a lawn or a forest. The subject of my journal article this week is greenways. To define greenways I shall differ you to our friend Wikipedia:

"long, narrow pieces of land, often used for recreation and pedestrian and bicycle traffic."

"The term greenway comes from the "green" in green belt and the "way" in parkway, implying a recreational or pedestrian use rather than a typical street corridor, as well as an emphasis on introducing or maintaining vegetation, in a location where such vegetation is otherwise lacking. Some greenways include community gardens as well as typical park-style landscaping of trees and shrubs. They also tend to have a mostly contiguous pathway, allowing urban commuting via bicycle or foot."

 The research article, "The Impact of Greenways on Property Values: Evidence from Austin, Texas" by Sarah Nicholls and John L. Crompton, discusses how greenways can positively affect property values in urban housing markets. The article begins: "While many of the advantages of public green spaces are highly intuitive
and easy to describe, they are often difficult to quantify."

Many people, whether they be ordinary citizens, businessmen, or government servers, naturally focus on tangible benefits of a place such as it's amenities or condition, but its the intangible factors that could be key. Property values can stimulate the local economy and this paper was an attempt to prove that parks and greenways are a valid means of accomplishing this task. 

By using the Proximate Principle and Hedonic Pricing, these researchers developed 3 study areas and a number of variable by which to judge them including the Sales value of property, View of greenbelt, and distances from various community facilities. 

The proximate principle essentially states that "that the value of a specified amenity is at least partially captured in the price of residential properties proximate to it." That means the things around your house help dictate how much it is worth. This is why people invest in their surroundings, whether it be their backyard garden/deck/pool, or push to have better public facilities such as schools or parks. 

Hedonic pricing is an economic technique developed to measure this principle. It uses six broad characteristics that influence and explain property prices. These are physical or structural features of the individual property, neighborhood conditions, community conditions, locational factors, environmental
factors, and macroeconomic market conditions at the time of sale.

The essence that I took away from this research was that hedonic pricing is a more throughout and accurate representation of property values than the average methods used because it takes into account the quality of life in a given area. There is a reason 2 out of the 3 study areas found property values benefiting from greenways, open space and nature provide intrinsic positive value. Now that there is more concrete proof, this value maybe see its way into the extrinsic realm of the real estate market. Investing in the community's parks and recreation facilities not only provides environmental and recreational benefits, but aesthetic and economic advantages as well.

Leisure vs. Obligation

“The relationship between obligation and leisure is complex,” begins the article I have chosen to read from the Journal of Leisure Research this week. Before stumbling upon “Leisure and Obligation: An Investigation of Volunteer Tourists' Experience at Kenya's Taita Discovery Center” I would normally have categorized these two ideas as opposites with cut-and-dry differences. But after learning about these research participants’/volunteer tourists’ experiences in Kenya I realized there is more of a continuum between leisure and obligation.

This study was conducted at a Kenyan Discovery Center located between East and West sections of a National Park. The goal of this Center is to conserve the wildlife population’s corridor between the two sections. The difficulty is there are private and communal lands in between this popular migration route so there are obvious conflicts between families, farmers and wild animals. The Discovery Center realizes it needs to work with the community in order to protect the wildlife and find a balance that benefits both stakeholders.

To do this, Taita Discovery Center relies on tourists attracted to wildlife viewing, conservation, and public service. Traditional tourism is almost always classified as a leisure activity because it is not mandatory, you are free to do what you like, and you are, hopefully, enjoying yourself. The opposite of this spectrum would be an obligated activity such as going to work.

The interesting part of this research study is that the tourists who come to this discovery center do so to work AND enjoy themselves. In fact, working in the fields of conservation management and community development is what makes their trip fun.

The results of this study, or why obligatory leisure is desired, came down to these 6 things:

“obligations were described as agreeable because they ( 1 ) were freely chosen and volunteers were not coerced in any way, (2) allowed the volunteers to differentiate themselves from traditional tourists, (3) occurred in novel physical and social settings, (4) were directly related to global causes about which the volunteers felt strongly, (5) were enjoyable, and (6) were perceived as free from evaluation.”

While I never initially thought about it in this way, I think these reasons for enjoyment make perfect sense. It comes down to the idea of truly enjoying what you do and finding value in your work. It’s sort of inspiring in a way – people spending their vacations or time off to volunteer and help out a community of people and animals, and they’re still having as much fun as they would in some tropical resort. The work, the company, and the surroundings are rewarding, not burdening.

On that note: “Find something you love to do and you'll never have to work a day in your life”

Urban Park Eras

As a student in the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management I catch a lot of flack about how I don’t do any work and my classes are about studying what it’s like to have fun. While I concede that I am not learning the technical ins and outs of medicine or engineering, I strongly believe in what I am learning: the ins and outs of a functioning society in an environmental context. My classes have dealt with a balance of social and natural sciences and I consider myself lucky to be involved in such an adaptable and relate-able field.

My concentration within PRTM is Park and Protected Area Management which focuses on how the natural world affects our social, economic, and physical wellbeing. I have chosen to use the Journal of Leisure Research for my blog posts for the remainder of the semester. I look forward to delving deeper into my area of expertise, recognizing topics from my classes and applying this knowledge to the articles and research papers I read. I hope to share some of these issues with my class and promote an understanding of the study of recreation and leisure.

The first article that caught my eye was about a book called The Politics of Park Design and how it is the “only comprehensive account of urban park development in the United States.” Written 30 years ago by Galen Cranz, this book starts out discussing the need recognition of parks in cities goes through the four stages of park politics up to present day. 

The first urban parks were called Pleasure Grounds and emerged from the idea that people needed an escape from the filth and crowd of city life. These “antidote” areas were to stimulate minds in an open, natural environment.

In one sense, this is exactly how I feel about the purpose of urban parks in today’s society and I am relieved our American ancestors felt the same way, because without this consideration, parks can be easily swallowed whole by housing or business development.

The second era in urban park development is known as the Reform Era because workers began having more free time and therefore more time for themselves. This was the beginning of playgrounds and swimming pools thanks to urban social workers recognizing the first need to “keep kids off the streets.”

I picture the kids from City of God or mini Green Street Hooligans swinging on swings or swimming in pools rather than beating the crap out of each other or robbing their neighbors.

The Recreation Facility era of the mid-20^th century sort of removed focus from the well-being of people to the well-being of the facility. There was a pride in enhancing and maintaining sports facilities and competitive spirit instead of maintaining green space and recuperation.

I can’t say this is my favorite aspect of the park and recreation field but it is important to note how economically beneficial athletics can be. The real money, however, is in the balance.

The final era, considered up until the book’s publication in 1980, is the Open Space era. This era craved connectivity and open space as a reaction to the facility structure craze for the earlier generation. This type of thing has to do with public squares, vacant lot parks, and corridor parks such as along a river or lake.

If Cranz were writing this book today, I will go out on a limb and deem the modern area the Sustainability era. Concepts of the environment are shifting toward sustaining the current ecosystems we have in an attempt to minimize human impact. I think that the fact we even have green spaces in urban areas attests to a healthier environment and a recent push in environmentalism is benefiting public health, economic stimulation, and social capital.

So that's an introduction to my interests and field of work. In the future I plan to find research and issue articles about things going on in our social and natural world.