Analyzing Accessibility Using Parcel Data: Is There Still an Access–Space Trade-Off in Long Beach, California?

Abstract

This article analyzes the impact of changing housing and neighborhood characteristics on the accessibility of neighborhood businesses using Long Beach, California, as a case study. Although advocates of smart growth and New Urbanism encourage land use mixing, aggregate-level analysis can be too coarse to pick up on fine-grained aspects of urban streetscapes. This study uses assessor parcel records and a point-based business establishment data set to analyze city-wide patterns of accessibility from individual dwelling units to thirty-one types of neighborhood businesses, including grocery stores, service shops, drug stores, doctor's offices, and banks. Regression results compare parcel-level and neighborhood-level drivers of accessibility between 2006 and 2015 to gauge the aggregated effect of recent economic, demographic, and built environment changes on this aspect of urban spatial structure. Larger homes in older, multiunit buildings and higher income neighborhoods show substantial increases in accessibility to most establishment types, suggesting a trend toward both greater accessibility and larger dwelling units—despite the traditional trade-off between access and space. Although gradual increases in home and business density increased overall accessibility over this period, weaker neighborhood-level results indicate that this trend is less pronounced in high-poverty and non-white areas.

本文运用加州长滩作为案例研究,分析改变中的住宅与邻里特徵,对于邻里商业的可及性之影响。尽管智能成长与新都市主义倡议鼓励土地混合使用,但总体层级的分析,在关注城市街道地景的细密纹理面向时却有可能过于粗糙。本研究运用估价区块记录,以及以点为根据的商业成立数据集,分析全城市从个人居住单位到包括杂货店,服务商店,药房,医生诊疗室与银行等三十一种邻里商业类别的可及性模式。迴归结果比较 2006 年至 2015 年间区块层级与邻里层级的可及性驱力,以测量晚近经济、人口与建成环境变迁对于此般城市空间结构面向的总计效应。在较古老的多单位建筑以及较高所得邻里中的较大型房舍,显示出对大多数成立类别的可及性显着增加,意味着同时有更高可及性与更大居住单位的发展趋势——即便传统上可及性与空间之间具有权衡关係。尽管此一时期住家与商业密度逐渐增加, 增加了总体的可及性,但较弱的邻里层级结果,意味着此一趋势在高度贫穷与非白人区域中较不显着。

Este artículo analiza el impacto de la transformación de viviendas y de las características del vecindario sobre la accesibilidad de comercios de barrio usando a Long Beach, California, como un estudio de caso. Aunque los partidarios del crecimiento inteligente y del Nuevo Urbanismo promueven la mezcla de usos del suelo, el análisis a nivel agregado puede ser demasiado crudo para retomar aspectos de alta resolución de los paisajes callejeros urbanos. Este estudio usa registros fraccionados de evaluadores y un conjunto de datos de establecimiento comercial basado en puntos para analizar patrones de accesibilidad general de la ciudad desde las unidades de vivienda individuales a treinta y un tipos de comercios de barrio, incluyendo tiendas de comestibles, centros de servicios, droguerías, consultorios médicos y bancos. Los resultados de la regresión comparan los controles de accesibilidad a nivel de parcela y a nivel de vecindario, entre 2006 y el 2015, para calibrar el efecto agregado de recientes cambios económicos, demográficos y del entorno edificado sobre este aspecto de la estructura espacial urbana. Las casas más grandes en los barrios más viejos, de edificios multifamiliares y de ingresos más altos, muestran sustanciales incrementos de accesibilidad a la mayoría de tipos de establecimientos, lo cual sugiere una tendencia tanto hacia una mayor accesibilidad como a unidades de vivienda más grandes ––pese a la tradicional compensación entre acceso y espacio. Aunque los incrementos graduales de densidad de casas y negocios mejoraron la accesibilidad total a lo largo de este período, los resultados más débiles a nivel de vecindario indican que esta tendencia es menos pronunciada en áreas de alta pobreza y de población no blanca.

Key Words:

• accessibility
• housing
• Long Beach
• parcel-level analysis
• urban morphology

关键词:

• 可及性
• 居住
• 长滩
• 区块层级分析
• 城市形态学。

Palabras clave:

• accesibilidad
• vivienda
• Long Beach
• análisis a nivel de parcela
• morfología urbana

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Metropolitan Futures Initiative at the University of California–Irvine. We thank Scott Kelley for sharing street network data, Young-An Kim for his invaluable research assistance, the journal's editor, two anonymous reviewers, and the audience at a May 2016 University of California-Irvine Department of Planning, Policy, and Design seminar at which an early version of this work was presented for comments and input that have greatly improved this article.

Notes

1 In 2006, 26.6 percent of dwelling units fell under this definition of renovated, and this number increased to 29.2 percent in 2015.

2 A thorough discussion of Proposition 13's impact on local public finance and zoning decisions can be found in Fischel (2001). Following the so-called Taxpayer's Revolt of the mid-1970s, California passed Proposition 13 in a voter referendum. As of 1975, county tax assessors statewide were only permitted to reassess properties at market value if a property was sold. Otherwise, assessment increases were capped at 2 percent per year or the level of inflation, whichever was lower (Prang 2015). The result is that similar properties can have very different assessed values, especially because Proposition 13 incentivizes long-term ownership. Because this article relies on assessed values rather than home sales as a measure of fair market value, assessed values were adjusted by back-calculating the effects of Proposition 13. Using the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) index for home price appreciation in the Los Angeles–Long Beach–Glendale metropolitan area, we estimated the appreciation expected of homes since their last tax assessment year based on region-wide trends (FHFA 2016). Removing the Proposition 13–based appreciation formula of 2 percent per year or the level of inflation (whichever is lower in a given year) yields an estimate of fair market value for properties that have not been reassessed since their last sale. The synthetic nature of Proposition 13–based home values is also reflected in their poor correlation with block group–level median family income (−0.06 in 2006 and 0.04 in 2015).

3 Because establishment data are most recently available in 2014 whereas parcel data first become available in 2006, establishments in 2005 are related to 2006 parcels, whereas 2014 establishments are related to 2015 parcels.

4 This study does not consider potential nonlinear effects—for example, buildings developed during certain periods might have unique characteristics that are not reflected in a single, continuous measure of building age (Kane, Connors, and Galletti 2014).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kevin Kane

KEVIN KANE is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Metropolitan Futures Initiative within the University of California, Irvine's Department of Planning, Policy, and Design, Irvine, CA 92697-7075. He is an economic geographer interested in land use change, neighborhood change, and economic development. His research uses urban land change as an outcome measure—in the form of changes to the built environment, shifting patterns of employment, or the socioeconomic composition of places—to better understand development policy, economic shifts, and the ways in which we use and travel across urban space.

John R. Hipp

JOHN R. HIPP is a Professor in the Department of Criminology, Law and Society, the Department of Policy, Planning, and Design, and the Department of Sociology, at the University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697-7080. He is the director of the Metropolitan Futures Initiative and codirector of the Irvine Lab for the Study of Space and Crime. His research interests focus on how neighborhoods change over time, how that change both affects and is affected by neighborhood crime, and the role that networks and institutions play in that change. He approaches these questions using quantitative methods as well as social network analysis.

Jae Hong Kim

JAE HONG KIM is an Associate Professor in the Department of Planning, Policy, and Design at the University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697-7075. His research focuses on urban economic development, land-use change, and the nexus between these two critical processes. His academic interests also lie in institutional environments—how institutional environments shape urban development processes—and urban system modeling. His scholarship attempts to advance our knowledge about the complex mechanisms of contemporary urban development and to develop innovative urban planning strategies and tools for both academics and practitioners.