Residential location and environmental quality: an econometric analysis
Authors
Davies, Graham John
Date
1974-08-01Awarding Institution
University of Cambridge
Author Affiliation
Department of Land Economy
Qualification
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Type
Thesis
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Davies, G. J. (1974). Residential location and environmental quality: an econometric analysis (Doctoral thesis). https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.16431
Description
This work has been concerned with identifying and evaluating the
attributes of housing which influence the households choice of location.
The work may be divided into three parts. Firstly, a part which examines
the existing literature on residential location theory with a view to ascer
taining its suitability or otherwise as a basis for an empirical analysis of
household location preferences.
The view is taken (Chapter 1) that existing theory does not sufficiently
accommodate environmental and neighbourhood amenity characteristics of
residential locations, within a framework suitable for deriving testable
hypotheses concerning their relevance.
The second part of the work presents a theoretical model of residential
preference determination which incorporates a consideration of both environmental
and accessibility features of residential locations (Chapter 2).
The emphasis is not however on the theoretical structure of the model which
is seen under appropriate conditions to be no more than a traditional utility
maximizing problem devoid of any general spatial interest. Rather the
interest is with the need to provide an operational framework for calibrating
the parameters of a general function relating renta11
payments to both amenity
and accessibility in the context of their particular spatial distribution for
a specific case. An econometric and statistical procedure sufficient to
accomplish such a parameterization is illustrated, along with a description
of the data used in the empirical analysis, (Chapters 3 and 4).
The third part of the work presents the results of the analysis and is
divided into two parts. One part, Chapter 5, identifying and evaluating the
residential characteristics, and examining household socio-economic relationships
with residential commodities, the other, Chapter 6" suggesting, the
relevance of the methods developed for an approach to environmental appraisal.
An Appendix A describes, in greater detail than Chapter 3, the data and the
sample. An extended Analysis of the results of a social survey, in addition,
to the results of Chapter 5 is included. An Appendix B illustrates the
questionnaires and .data forms used in the data collection.
The work is perhaps characterised firstly by the concern with residential
environment and its measurement at a microeconomic level. This approach
required a concentration upon one urban area and data of specific house
purchases, the socio-economic characteristics of households concerned and
of the amenity and accessibility features of each location. Secondly, the
work is characterised by the attempt to measure Engelts
1. Throughout this work "rental payments 11 refer to the prices paid by
households for their house.
functions for the residential commodity bundle , for while other
attempts to measure amenity have been made no attempt to identify
expenditure functions a t such a level of disaggregation is known to the
author.