Estimating the demand for public open space: Evidence from North Carolina municipalities**The work presented here was funded by Renaissance Computing Institute at UNC Charlotte and National Science Foundation ULTRA†Ex (BCS†0949170). We thank Bayard Alcorn of the North Carolina Division of Parks and Recreation for providing the data on open space. Thanks also to Elizabeth Delmelle, Monica Dorning, Zhaoya Gong, Elizabeth Hayden, Douglas Shoemaker, Kunwar K. Singh, and Xiaojia Wang for data collection and analyses. We are grateful to Vicki Bott, J. Matthew Fannin, Andrew Krmenec, Douglas Shoemaker and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and helpful suggestions. The usual disclaimer applies

This paper empirically identifies socio†economic, physical, and geographic factors of the demand for open space in the state of North Carolina in the United States. Estimated coefficients suggest that spatial dependency exists in open space demand and that open space is a normal good. The paper provides the first empirical investigation of how open space demand is affected by local weather conditions. It is found that the demand has a statistically significant substitution relationship with nice weather. We discuss the socio†economic rationale for the estimated demand models within the regional context of North Carolina and point to some relevant policy implications.