Effects of spatial access to neighborhood land-use density on housing prices: Evidence from a multilevel hedonic analysis in Seoul, South Korea

Attaining a mixture and diversity of land use within walkable neighborhoods is an essential principle within contemporary urban planning and design. Empirical studies by New Urbanists argue that mixed land use, neo-traditional, and walkable neighborhoods yield socioeconomic benefits and generate a substantial premium in residential property prices. However, few studies apply reliable metrics to capture the connections among urban form, the spatial distribution of land use, and travel behavior and then value their combined effects on housing prices. To bridge this gap, this study calculates the metrics of spatial accessibility and centrality, combining street nodes, networks, and built density by land use type within walkable neighborhoods. We investigate empirically the extent to which residents value spatial accessibility and centrality to residential, commercial, office, and industrial space regarding housing prices in Seoul, South Korea in 2010. The multilevel hedonic price models used suggest that residents highly value urban settings that access larger volumes of commercial and residential buildings in densely spaced areas along dense street networks. However, homeowners respond negatively to higher access to industrial property and weakly to office space. This analysis identifies the value of spatial access to heterogeneous land-use density in housing prices and provides policy implications for land use, transportation, and urban design.