Nearby Properties Research Articles

The Role of Roadside Tree Planting in Environmental Conservation

Roadside tree planting refers to the practice of planting trees along roadsides and highways. It serves multiple purposes, including enhancing the aesthetic appeal of the landscape, providing shade, reducing erosion, improving air quality, and creating wildlife habitats. These trees can also act as windbreaks, reducing the impact of strong winds on vehicles and nearby properties. Moreover, they contribute to mitigating the urban heat island effect by providing cooling shade and reducing surface temperatures. Additionally, roadside tree planting can help in carbon sequestration, as trees absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere during photosynthesis. Overall, it's a sustainable practice with numerous environmental, social, and economic benefits.

Botanic Garden Tourism and its Potential as Tourist’s Attraction in Karongi District

Purpose: Botanic a garden, usually open to the public, where a wide range of plants are grown for scientific, education and tourism purposes. The objectives of this project were to create the botanic garden tourism in Bwishyura sector, investigate its market demand, to explore how it can help in biodiversity conservation, improving the life of surrounding local citizens and protect the environment in the region.
 Methodology: The study used mixed method. Random and convenience sampling technics were used to sample 30 respondents from 50 target population. The collected data was analyzed using statistical tables to verify hypotheses of this study.
 Findings: The study found that there were no botanic gardens in the study area. Other indicators such as motivation of travellers for visiting botanic garden, level of interest, affordable entrance fees and visiting frequencies in the last twelve months were presented. Having this botanic garden in Bwishyura sector brings many benefits to the area such as education on plants and animal life, bringing tourists and day trippers, increasing the value of nearby properties, promote scientific and horticulture research.
 Unique contribution to theory, practice and policy: The study recommend local authorities and stakeholders to encourage the investors to invest in botanic garden tourism, to increase the awareness of this attraction to the local citizens and visitors. This study also calls for business persons and tourism government institutions to take advantage of these findings as it explain benefits they might target.

Evaluating gas breakthrough pressure and gas permeability in a landfill cover layer for mitigation of hazardous gas emissions

The construction of an engineered cover layer over landfills is a common method applied to reduce the emission of hazardous gases into the atmosphere. Landfill gas pressures can reach 50 kPa or even higher in some cases, thus posing a serious threat to nearby properties and human safety. As such, the evaluation of gas breakthrough pressure and gas permeability in a landfill cover layer is of great necessity. In this study, the loess soil that is often applied as a cover layer in landfills in northwestern China was used to conduct gas breakthrough, gas permeability, and mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP) tests. Resultantly, the smaller the capillary tube diameter, the higher the capillary force, and the more significant the capillary effect. Gas breakthrough could be attained with no difficulty, provided that the capillary effect was minimal or approached zero. A good fit between the experimental gas breakthrough pressure–intrinsic permeability relationship and a logarithmic equation was found. The mechanical effect blew up the gas flow channel. In the worst-case scenario, the mechanical effect could lead to the overall failure of a loess cover layer in a landfill. A new gas flow channel was formed between the rubber membrane and the loess specimen as a result of the interfacial effect. Although both the mechanical and interfacial effects can elevate the gas emission rate, the latter did not play a role in the improvement of the gas permeability; therefore, misleading interference took place in the evaluation of the gas permeability, and an overall failure of the loess cover layer. To tackle this problem, the point at which the large- and small-effective stress asymptotes cross on the volumetric deformation–Peff diagram may be applied to give early warning signals of the potential overall failure of the loess cover layer in landfills in northwestern China.

The housing market impacts of bicycle-sharing systems

This study provides the first willingness-to-pay estimate for docked bicycle-sharing systems by identifying these systems’ impacts on rental property values. Using rental listing data in Taiwan and applying a spatial difference-in-differences strategy, we find that the inception of a bicycle-sharing system significantly increases the rental prices of nearby properties. Results also indicate that citizens benefit from the system by solving the first-and-last-mile problem in public transportation but do not value the system as an independent transportation mode. We do not find robust evidence showing that the inception of a bicycle-sharing system improves air quality.

A hedonic study of New England dam removals

There are over fourteen thousand dams in the New England region. Recent efforts to remove dams to return rivers back to their natural orientations in the United States have increased, though a host of potential externalities exist to nearby communities. We compile 75 removed dams in the New England region to estimate the aggregate treatment effect of dam removal on nearby properties. We employ a repeat sales sample with property fixed effects and a difference-in-differences strategy to estimate the proximity effects of dam removal. We cannot reject the null hypothesis that dam removals have no effect on proximity properties.

Economic Impacts of Platform-Endorsed Quality Certification: Evidence from Airbnb

We contribute to the emerging literature on quality certification by digital platforms by studying the launch of the Airbnb Plus service, wherein the platform inspects properties and provides a badge that presumably signals the quality of the property and the reliability of the host. Our identification strategy relies on the fact that the Airbnb Plus service was launched in different cities at different times, and listings within the cities received the certification at different times. Using a staggered difference-in-differences estimation strategy in conjunction with suitable matching methods, we found that the Airbnb Plus certification increased the weekly booking rate of Plus listings by about 6.8% on average (direct effect). We also found some evidence that non-Plus listings saw a temporary decline in booking rate when one or more nearby properties received a Plus certification (externality effect). The net impact of the Airbnb Plus service on the platform itself was an annual increase in revenue of about $37,500 for the average 2-kilometer zone in a U.S. city that included one or more Plus listings, as compared to matched zones without any Plus listings (local platform effect). We performed additional analyses, including a randomized experiment, to demonstrate the robustness of our findings. Overall, our results suggest that platform-endorsed quality certification has significant economic impacts—not just on the listings that receive the certification but on other listings on the platform as well as on the platform itself.

Time Savings vs. Access-Based Benefit Assessment of New York’s Second Avenue Subway

AbstractUnder the current practice of benefit-cost analysis, the direct economic benefits produced by a newly built transit facility are assessed based on how it affects travel time and various costs that are associated with transport needs and travel behavior. However, the time-saving-based benefit calculation approach has been questioned and criticized. Given the strong correlation between accessibility and land value, we propose the access-based land value benefit assessment as an alternative, and apply this assessment method to analyzing the Second Avenue Subway project in Manhattan, New York. The primary principle of the access-based method is that the economic value of a transport project’s intangible gains is largely capitalized by nearby properties’ value appreciation, which is directly caused by improved transport accessibility. We find that: (i) the actual travel time saving is lower than originally forecast; (ii) a strong positive correlation between residential property value and job accessibility by transit is observed; (iii) the appreciation in sold property value and rented property value both far exceed total project cost; and (iv) such results support the decision to approve and construct the Second Avenue Subway.

Do homeowners benefit when coal-fired power plants switch to natural gas? Evidence from Beijing, China

Coal-fired power plants are among the biggest air polluters both in China and globally. In 2013, China launched a pilot project to switch its power plants from coal to natural gas to curb coal-fired plants’ detrimental effects on air quality. Debates about this policy mainly invoke the costs, but no study examines whether the change led to cleaner air and associated economic benefits. This article provides the first causal estimate of the capitalization effect of coal-to-gas conversion on housing prices. We estimate a triple difference model using housing transaction data from 2011 to 2015 and administrative data on all power plants in Beijing. Our results, although marginally significant, show that coal-to-gas conversion leads to a positive price premium of 11% for nearby properties. We provide suggestive evidence that our findings of positive price premiums are likely attributable to the reduction in air pollutants following the coal-to-gas switch, including a 4.9% reduction in particulate matter and 5.2% decrease in SO2.

Sports facilities and the local property tax base in recovery

AbstractThis study considers if major league sports facilities help the property tax base in their vicinity recover from recession. The Great Recession is treated as an exogenous shock to the property tax base, and proximity to three facilities in Los Angeles County, California is used to predict the speed at which nearby properties’ taxable assessed value recovers. California is a useful context because state law provides a consistent and uncontroversial way to measure property tax base recovery. Using parcel‐level data from 2006 through 2019 for properties within 3 miles of the Staples Center, Dodger Stadium, and Dignity Health Sports Park, only proximity to Dodger Stadium impacts recovery speed. The results indicate that an average property a mile closer to the stadium recovers in 87% of the time an otherwise similar property a mile further away does, a finding that is robust to placebo. The study’s implications are discussed.

Factors Influencing Family Forest Owners' Interest in Community-led Collective Invasive Plant Management.

Effective invasive plant management requires collective action. However, little is known about what motivates individuals to work collectively. We conducted a mail survey of 2,600 randomly selected family forest owners in Indiana, USA to examine factors associated with community-led collective action. Specifically, we examined the role of perceived self-efficacy, perceived collective efficacy, concerns about invasive plants, and social norms associated with invasive plant management in shaping family forest owners' self-reported likelihood to work with their neighbors to remove invasive plants. We found that past experience talking to others or working with neighbors to remove invasive plants were important predictors of landowners' intention to work collectively, as were perceived self-efficacy in their own ability to manage invasive plants, perceived need for collective action, social norms, and concerns about invasive plants on neighboring or nearby properties. However, most socio-demographic characteristics (e.g., age, gender, education level, income) and land ownership characteristics (e.g., residence status, having a written forest management plan) were not statisically significant predictors of family forest owners' likelihood to work with their neighbors. Our findings suggest that building individual sense of competence, facilitating neighbor interactions, and strengthening shared concerns may facilitate community-led collective action to manage invasive plants.

Implementation of video motion magnification technique for non-contact operational modal analysis of light poles

Damages on lights and utility poles mounted on the elevated highway or railway bridges were observed in the past several large earthquakes. The damages could have serious consequences to public safety, travelling vehicles or trains, and nearby properties. A previous study shows that the damages were caused by buckling and yielding of the pole due to excessive response amplification during large earthquake. Such amplification occurs when the bridge's natural frequency is close to the light pole's fundamental frequency. An investigation of the seismic performance of existing light pole mounted on elevated highway bridges is needed to avoid the response amplification. This includes the identification of the light pole's natural frequency and damping ratio. Vibration testing of the light pole using conventional contact sensors individually would require enormous effort and is time-consuming. Moreover, such vibration testing on a highway bridge deck would require traffic disruption to provide access. Video camera-based non-contact vision sensing is seen as a promising alternative to the conventional contact sensors for this purpose. The objective of this paper is to explore the use of non-contact vision sensing for operational modal analysis of light pole on highway viaduct. The phase-based video motion magnification method is implemented to obtain the light pole response in an ambient condition. Using this method, small and invisible displacement is magnified for a certain range of frequency of interest. Based on the magnified video frames, structural displacement is extracted using the image processing technique. The natural frequency and damping ratio of the light pole are estimated using the random decrement technique. The method is verified in a laboratory-scale experiment and implemented to practical field measurements of a light pole on a highway viaduct in Kanagawa, Japan. The results are compared with measurement by Laser Doppler Vibrometer. Both experiments suggest that the method could effectively obtain the natural frequency and damping ratio of the structures under the ambient condition where vibration amplitudes are very small and invisible with reasonable accuracy.

Neighborhood Institutions and Residential Home Sales: Evaluating the Impact of Property Tax Exemptions

We focus on the urban amenities of “neighborhood institutions,” which are the myriad localized governments and nonprofits, such as religious and educational institutions, that provide public or quasi-public services to their neighborhoods. We examine whether neighborhood institutions positively impact their surrounding neighborhoods by utilizing property tax exemption records from the City of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, during 2002–2016. We combine these records with parcel-level data on residential home sales to identify each institution’s exact location and type. Using a traditional hedonic model and a repeat sales model, we examine the influence of nearby tax-exempt properties on residential home sales. We find from the repeat sales model that close proximity (0 m–250 m) to educational properties, labor halls, and utilities are associated with lower home sale prices, all else equal. We find a sporadic and limited positive correlation with nearby colleges and cemeteries and home sale prices.

Intrinsic Real Option Value: Empirical Evidence from Commercial Real Estate Investors

We investigate how local information externalities affect investments in tangible durable assets via real options. Using geocoded transaction-level data on US commercial properties from 2000 to 2018, we find that investors have a higher propensity to invest in a property for immediate redevelopment when its capital intensity and type of commercial activity differ from those of recently built nearby properties. Information externalities affect 'buy-to-redevelop' investment strategies as much as the asset capital depreciation - a main determinant of real option exercise highlighted in the literature - and can increase up to 30 percent the investors' willingness to pay to invest in the property.

Buy-to-Rent Investors and the Market for Single Family Homes

We examine the impact of house purchases by large buy-to-rent investors on local real estate markets. First, we present micro-level evidence of positive externalities from institutional entry. We show that returns on repeat sales of properties near purchases by buy-to-rent investors are significantly greater if the repeat sale concluded after the buy-to-rent purchase rather than before. Secondly, we highlight the potential channel underlying such an externality as a supply side effect. Specifically, we show that properties outside the price range normally paid by buy-to-rent investors experienced smaller gains after nearby buy-to-rent purchases. Thus, buy-to-rent investors appear to increase the value of properties in an area by reducing the local supply. Lastly, we document mortgage market effects due to institutional purchases and related supply effects. We show that mortgage use increased after the buy-to-rent purchases of nearby properties and that the increase arises from existing lenders that operate in the market rather than new lenders entering the market.

Living la Vida T-LoCoH: site fidelity of Florida ranched and wild white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) during the epizootic hemorrhagic disease virus (EHDV) transmission period

BackgroundEpizootic hemorrhagic disease virus (EHDV) is a pathogen vectored by Culicoides midges that causes significant economic loss in the cervid farming industry and affects wild deer as well. Despite this, its ecology is poorly understood. Studying movement and space use by ruminant hosts during the transmission season may elucidate EHDV ecology by identifying behaviors that can increase exposure risk. Here we compared home ranges (HRs) and site fidelity metrics within HRs using the T-LoCoH R package and GPS data from collared deer.MethodsHere, we tested whether white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) roaming within a high-fenced, private deer farm (ranched) and native deer from nearby state-managed properties (wild) exhibited differences in home range (HR) size and usage during the 2016 and 2017 EHDV seasons. We captured male and female individuals in both years and derived seasonal HRs for both sexes and both groups for each year. HRs were calculated using a time-scale distance approach in T-LoCoH. We then derived revisitation and duration of visit metrics and compared between years, sexes, and ranched and wild deer.ResultsWe found that ranched deer of both sexes tended to have smaller activity spaces (95% HR) and revisited sites within their HR more often but stayed for shorter periods than wild deer. However, core area (25% HR) sizes did not significantly differ between these groups.ConclusionsThe contrast in our findings between wild and ranched deer suggest that home range usage, rather than size, in addition to differences in population density, likely drive differences in disease exposure during the transmission period.

Impact of Transit-Oriented Development on Residential Property Values around Urban Rail Stations

Few previous studies have linked transit-oriented development (TOD) patterns and property values at the station level in the Chinese context. Using Shanghai as a case study, we obtained 21,094 transaction records within the 800 m radius catchment areas of 280 urban rail stations from a local property agency. A performance-based TOD indicator framework was established to capture built-environment features for density, diversity, and design dimensions. Using open-source geospatial data, we generated a series of TOD indicators for each station catchment area and further developed a composite TOD index with information entropy weighting. The results of multilevel regression models showed that within urban rail station catchment areas, residential properties with higher TOD levels were positively associated with higher value. In addition, increasing pedestrian and bike accessibility and integrating diversified urban functions around stations could create more value for nearby residential properties.

Assessment of Blast-Induced Ground Vibration at Jinduicheng Molybdenum Open Pit Mine

Ground vibration generated from blasting activities is a major problem in mine open-pit slopes and nearby properties, and it can endanger the inhabitants in the surrounding environment. To understand better the influence of blasting activities in the open-pit mine, it is important to determine the propagation and attenuation of the blast-induced vibration in open-pit slope. This paper presents a predictive model based on the Sadovsky equation for determining blast-induced ground vibration in the Jinduicheng open-pit mine, Shaanxi province, China. The field observation focused on providing measurements and data collected for the wave propagation with the influence of blasting activities. Empirical models were also used for predicting blast-induced ground vibration for comparison with the Sadovsky model. Blast design parameters such as maximum charge per delay and distance were considered as input parameters for prediction of blast-induced vibration. Site constants for different empirical equations were taken into consideration when determining the peak particle velocities in the Jinduicheng north slope. The performance indices of R2 (correlation coefficient), MSE (mean square error), RMSE (root mean square error), MAPE (mean absolute percentage error) and MEDAE (median absolute error) were calculated for the empirical models and the Sadovsky model. The results showed that the Sadovsky model is a more satisfactory model for predicting blast-induced vibration as compared to empirical models.

Public transport accessibility and the prices of nearby properties: the case of the first metro line in Warsaw

This paper identifies the relation between metro proximity and the prices of residential properties in Warsaw. The analysis is based on 2006-2013 AMRON-SARFiN data. The results show that metro has a positive impact on property prices if it is located at most 1.5 km from the property. The greatest increase in price of 8-13 per cent is observed when metro is located 400-800 meters from the property. The results indicate that when the metro transportation is poor, it causes a large increase in property prices, which is not comparable to the impact of other transports, such as bus or tram.

Measuring the price premium of energy efficiency: A two-step analysis in the Italian housing market

Decarbonizing the building sector by means of the smart interconnection of increasingly efficient buildings is one of the European Union's goals in order to meet its climate and energy targets and a milestone in delivering future positive-energy cities. Energy performance certificates today, and smart readiness indicators tomorrow should positively influence consumers’ choices and orient them towards an appreciation of sustainable buildings. Although energy performance certificates are now required by law in the EU Member States, it remains to be seen whether and how local real estate markets react to them. To fill this gap, we analyzed a cross-sectional housing dataset in the Italian city of Bolzano, which serves as a noteworthy case study due to its compact urban form and the environmental awareness of its local society. We first tested a hedonic price model, and then its spatial specification. Considering the certified energy efficiency performance and the characteristics of the location among the explanatory variables, we found a price premium in excess of 6% on moving from the worst (“G”) to the best (“A”) energy efficiency class, all other characteristics being equal. The presence of a spillover effect to nearby properties can also be framed as an additional co-benefit of retrofitting.

Different Factors Affecting Vacant Housing According to Regional Characteristics in South Korea

In recent years, many cities in developed countries have struggled with housing vacancy. Empty homes are accompanied by social problems such as vandalism, arson, unsanitary environments, and collapse risk. Vacant houses also have negative effects on the value of nearby properties and their local communities. Accordingly, there have been various policy responses to tackle this problem. In spite of these efforts, however, the number of vacant houses continues to increase alongside a population decrease and imprudent developments. In South Korea, the number of vacant houses has increased since the 1990s, and central and local governments started developing plans and policies to resolve the problem from 2010. However, most of these policies have many similarities regardless of their differing regional conditions and contexts. Housing vacancy varies according to regions, its magnitude, surrounding environments or housing types, and thus calls for multilateral approaches. This article, therefore, aims to identify distributional characteristics of vacant houses in South Korea, and categorize them into three groups with regional contexts using cluster analysis. The study further found that there are differences in affecting factors of vacant houses by type through the use of a multiple regression model. Based on the analysis, the ways of managing housing vacancy for sustainable development are discussed.