Blessing or Curse? Appreciation, Amenities and Resistance around the Berlin "Mediaspree"

Gabriel Ahlfeldt

No 32, Working Papers from Chair for Economic Policy, University of Hamburg

Abstract: This article investigates the 2008 referendum held in opposition against the "Mediaspree", a major urban development project in Berlin that has been perceived as a threat of displacement of local residents and culture. Using precinct level data we find a high degree of localized resistance around the project area, conditional on socio-demographic characteristics. Comparison to local appreciation rates shows that in an environment of very low owner occupancy public (re)development projects are opposed the more residents associate an increase in area valuation. This effects is, however, not strong enough to explain the localized resistance. Considering a micro-level data set on music nodes, our results suggest that resistance is rather attributable to a feared loss of specific cultural amenities and neighborhood character.

Keywords: Cultural Amenities; Urban Development; Displacement; Hedonic Modeling; Mediaspree (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: R20 Z10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 pages
Date: 2010
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cul, nep-ppm and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Published in Hamburg Contemporary Economic Discussions, Issue 32, 2010

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http://www.hced.uni-hamburg.de/WorkingPapers/HCED-032.pdf First version, 2010 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hce:wpaper:032

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