Assessing Neighborhood Walkability Based on Usage Characteristics of Amenities under Chinese Metropolises Context

Zelong Xia, Hao Li and Yuehong Chen
Additional contact information
Zelong Xia: School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China
Hao Li: School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China
Yuehong Chen: School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 11, 1-18

Abstract: In the age of rapid motorization, walking, as both a green travelling mode and the most common form of daily physical activity, has been given increasing attention in Chinese metropolises. Walkability describes the extent to which a neighborhood environment is walking-friendly and recently has been regarded as a potential impetus for inflated housing prices. In this paper, we develop a walkability measurement model considering residents’ usage characteristics of the amenity, which incorporates three key factors: (1) amenity usage frequency; (2) amenity selection diversity; (3) the distance decay effect. Accordingly, we employ the proposed method to the case of Nanjing City and identify a clear spatial pattern of spatial heterogeneity in walkability among the 4143 dwelling areas within it. The experimental results suggest that the distribution of the residential walkability score varied greatly within Nanjing. It can be seen that dwelling areas with a high walkability score were clustered in the urban central regions and most dwelling areas showed a low walkability. Then, we utilized the hedonic price model to explore the correlation between neighborhood walkability and housing prices. The results show that the effects of community walkability on housing prices were statistically significant in Nanjing. Thus, we can infer that high walkability communities generally have concentrated rich amenity resources, and consequently have high property values.

Keywords: physical activity; walkability; neighborhood environment; usage characteristics; distance decay; hedonic price model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/11/3879/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/11/3879/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:11:p:3879-:d:178218

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().