Urban configuration, accessibility, and property prices: a case study of Cardiff, Wales

Abstract

The specification of locational attributes in hedonic houseprice models has traditionally been problematic. Whilst many studies use similar sets of structural attributes the range of locational attributes can be diverse and inconsistent both in their identification and in their measurement. To address this problem, researchers have adopted concepts related to urban configuration such as the monocentric city and the access – space trade-off model, and later multicentric and multiple accessibility models, to structure their enquiry. This has led to issues related to a priori variable specification using geometrically defined accessibility measures that can also lead to problems such as spatial autocorrelation. In this research, we investigate the use of network accessibility metrics in hedonic house price research using Cardiff, Wales as a case study. We hypothesize that a network-modelling approach to measuring accessibility will improve performance compared with conventional planar geometry specifications. We find that estimating centrality variables across a variety of spatial scales allows the impact on property prices of urban configurations to be modelled more accurately. The research shows that not all dimensions of accessibility can be adequately captured by network measures and that conventional planar geometry measures of accessibility can add additional explanatory power in certain circumstances.