Paul de Vries

The Influence of the Residential Environment on Green-Space Travel: Testing the Compensation Hypothesis

We investigated whether the use of parks and other green recreational facilities is influenced by the amount of green space around a dwelling and in the immediate neighbourhood. We paid particular attention to testing the compensation hypothesis, which states that people with less green space in their own residential environment are more likely to visit parks or nature reserves. The frequency of visits to green amenities was analyzed in relation to detailed spatial data based on sociodemographic variables. The findings indicated that, although people tend to make more use of green space if it is available in the vicinity, a brown (more urban) residential environment does not result in compensation behaviour. An explanation for this may be self-selection in the residential-choice process. It is conceivable, however, that some of the people who do not live in a green neighbourhood but would prefer to do so will move to a more suburban or rural environment.

Local House Price Developments and Housing Supply

Purpose – In this paper, we identify the relationship between (local) housing supply and (local) house price developments, especially in The Netherlands.Design/methodology/approach – We measure the influence of new building on house prices by comparing areas designated for concentrated new building (main Dutch cities) with areas where no large housing projects are developed. On the basis of classical economic theory, if the housing market is functioning as it should, then supply will soon respond to a shock in demand and restore stability in house prices.Findings – For the main Dutch cities, we found that an increase in supply triggers a fall in prices. In other areas the correlation coefficients are more or less zero, which can lead us to conclude that the expansion of the housing stock is market‐compliant.Research limitations/implications – The housing market is not functioning, as it should: new supplies depend on the complex decisions of the suppliers, thus making it difficult to express statistically...