Amenities and the attraction of Dutch cities

ABSTRACT

Amenities and the attraction of Dutch cities. Regional Studies. Research on the relevance of amenities for urban wages, jobs or housing prices has mainly focused on the case of US cities. In many (European) countries, the labour and housing markets function, however, rather differently than in the case of the United States. As a result, amenities may affect urban labour or housing markets differently. In addition, in European countries the proximity of cities is such that spatial interdependencies between cities have to be taken into account as well. By using a very rich dataset, this paper analyses the relationship between urban amenities, agglomeration and housing prices for the case of a highly urbanized European country, the Netherlands. It finds that Dutch cities that combine a favourable job location with a variety of urban amenities have significantly higher housing prices. Relatively safe cities, offering a variety of history and cultural events, as well as good restaurants, also have significantly higher housing prices.

摘要

荷兰城市的环境舒适性与吸引力。区域研究。环境舒适性之于城市薪资、工作或房价的相关性研究，主要聚焦于美国城市的案例。在诸多（欧洲）城市中，劳动与房屋市场的运作则与美国的案例有所不同。环境舒适性因而可能对城市劳动或房屋市场有着不同的影响。此外，在欧洲城市间的邻近性方面，必须同时考量城市之间的空间互赖。本文运用丰沛的数据集，分析荷兰这个高度城市化的欧洲国家案例中，环境舒适性、聚集与房价之间的关联性。研究结果发现，结合了有利的工作地点和多样的环境舒适性的荷兰城市，有着明显较高的房价。提供多样的历史与文化活动及优良的餐厅，且相对安全的城市，亦拥有显着较高的房价。

RÉSUMÉ

L’équipement collectif et l’attractivité des grandes villes hollandaises. Regional Studies. La recherche sur l'importance de l’équipement collectif pour ce qui est des salaires urbains, des emplois ou du prix du logement a porté dans une large mesure sur l’étude de cas des grandes villes situées aux É-U. Cependant, dans beaucoup de grandes villes (européennes), les marchés du travail et du logement fonctionnent de façon plutôt différente des États-Unis. Par conséquent, il se peut que l’équipement collectif puisse influencer différemment les marchés urbains du travail et du logement. En outre, dans les pays européens, la proximité des grandes villes est telle qu'il faut tenir compte aussi des interdépendances spatiales intervilles. En employant un ensemble de données très riche, ce présent article analyse le rapport entre l’équipement collectif urbain, l'agglomération et le prix du logement pour ce qui est d'un pays européen fortement urbanisée, à savoir la Hollande. Il s'avère que, dans les grandes villes hollandaises qui réunissent un lieu de travail favorable à toute une gamme d’équipements collectifs urbains, les prix du logement sont sensiblement plus élevés. Des grandes villes relativement sûres qui organisent un éventail d’événements historiques et culturels, et offrent aussi de bons restaurants, font témoin des prix du logement sensiblement plus élevés.

ZUSAMMENFASSUNG

Annehmlichkeiten und Attraktivität von niederländischen Städten. Regional Studies. Die Studien über die Relevanz von städtischen Annehmlichkeiten für die Löhne, Arbeitsplätze oder Wohnungspreise in Städten konzentrieren sich in erster Linie auf Städte in den USA. In vielen (europäischen) Ländern funktionieren die Arbeits- und Wohnungsmärkte jedoch auf eher andere Weise als in den USA. Daher können sich auch die Annehmlichkeiten anders auf die städtischen Arbeits- oder Wohnungsmärkte auswirken. Darüber hinaus ist in europäischen Ländern die Nähe zwischen Städten so beschaffen, dass räumliche Interdependenzen zwischen Städten ebenfalls berücksichtigt werden müssen. In diesem Beitrag wird unter Verwendung eines stark erweiterten Datensatzes die Beziehung zwischen städtischen Annehmlichkeiten, Ballung und Wohnungspreisen im Fall eines hochgradig urbanisierten europäischen Landes – nämlich der Niederlande – untersucht. Es stellt sich heraus, dass niederländische Städte, in denen sich eine günstige Arbeitsplatzlage mit verschiedenen städtischen Annehmlichkeiten verbindet, signifikant höhere Wohnungspreise aufweisen. Relativ sichere Städte mit historischem Hintergrund und vielfältigem Kulturangebot sowie guten Restaurants weisen ebenfalls signifikant höhere Wohnungspreise auf.

RESUMEN

Infraestructura y el poder de atracción de las ciudades holandesas. Regional Studies. Los estudios sobre la importancia de la infraestructura urbana para salarios, trabajos o precios de la vivienda se han centrado sobre todo en ciudades estadounidenses. Sin embargo, en muchos países (europeos), el mercado laboral e inmobiliario funciona de modo bastante distinto que en los Estados Unidos. En consecuencia, la infraestructura podría afectar de forma diferente a los mercados laborales o inmobiliarios urbanos. Además, en los países europeos la proximidad de las ciudades es tal que también deben tenerse en cuenta las interdependencias espaciales entre las ciudades. En este artículo empleamos un extenso conjunto de datos para analizar la relación entre la infraestructura urbana, la aglomeración y los precios de la vivienda para el caso de los Países Bajos, un país europeo muy urbanizado. Observamos que en las ciudades neerlandesas que combinan una buena ubicación laboral con una amplia variedad de infraestructuras urbanas, los precios de la vivienda son considerablemente más altos. En ciudades relativamente seguras con contexto histórico y una oferta cultural amplia y variada, así como buenos restaurantes, los precios de la vivienda también son mucho más elevados.

KEYWORDS:

• urban amenities
• population growth
• housing prices

关键词:

• 城市环境舒适性
• 人口成长
• 房价

MOTS-CLÉS:

• équipement collectif urbain
• croissance démographique
• prix du logement

SCHLÜSSELWÖRTER:

• städtische annehmlichkeiten
• bevölkerungswachstum
• Wohnungspreise

PALABRAS CLAVES:

• infraestructura urbana
• crecimiento de población
• Precios de la vivienda

JEL:

• R10

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This paper builds on chapters 4–6 of Gerard Marlet's doctoral thesis (Marlet, 2009). The authors thank the editors; two anonymous referees; the seminar participants at the 2011 and 2013 ERSA conferences in Barcelona and Palermo respectively; Steven Brakman, Tom Kemeny, Mark Partridge and Abdella Oumer for their comments; and Clemens van Woerkens and Roderik Ponds for their role in compiling the dataset.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

SUPPLEMENTAL DATA

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2015.1135239

Notes

1 But see also Adamson, Clark, and Partridge (2004), who, and with the exception of the eight largest US cities, show that more skilled workers monotonically prefer large cities for urban amenities but instead of housing prices they use net migration and wages to identify these patterns.

2 One can refer here to the literature in urban economics that, following Roback (1982) and Blomquist, Berger, and Hoehn (1988), analyses the conditions for a spatial or locational equilibrium across cities. In this set up (exogenous) inter-city amenity differences are fully reflected in the inter-city differentials dr/dA and dw/dA, where r, w and A are housing rents, nominal wages and amenities respectively. There is, however, also a well-established literature in urban economics that focuses on intra-city spatial equilibrium where utility for households is equalized within a single (monocentric) city, and where intra-city amenity differences are reflected in differences in housing rents across the city (wages are uniform per city). In this respect, a spatial or locational equilibrium can be given an inter-city as well as an intra-city foundation. Given, as will be argued below, that wages do not vary across cities in the Dutch case, the authors agree with the observation of one referee that for the analysis both versions of the spatial equilibrium analysis boil down to the conclusion that housing rents or housing prices need to adjust to compensate for (inter- and intra-)city differences in amenities so as to keep households’ utility constant across space.

3 See also Kemeny and Storper (2010), Albouy (2009), Glaeser (2008) or Glaeser and Gottlieb (2009) for additional and more mixed evidence for US regions and cities as to the relevance of amenity led growth.

4 The study of Cheshire and Magrini (2006) is for European cities; recent country studies that assess the relevance of (urban) amenities include Italy (Maddison & Bigano, 2003; Colombo, Michelangeli, & Stanca, 2010), Germany (Rehdanz & Maddison, 2009; Buettner & Ebertz, 2009), England and Wales (Srinivasan & Stewart, 2004; Stewart & Lee, 2009), Canada (Giannias, 1998), and Russia (Berger, Blomquist, & Sabirianova, 2008).

5 The fact that restrictive housing building policies undermine the relevance of urban amenities for urban population growth is not only relevant for the Netherlands. Even in some of the US states, notably California, building policies have become quite restrictive over time to the effect that the relationship between urban amenities and urban population growth has weakened (Glaeser & Shapiro, 2003; Glaeser, Gyourko & Saks, 2006).

6 The main reason to focus on owner-occupied housing prices instead of on the housing rents of the rental market is that for the rental housing market not only is the quantity of housing available restricted and almost completely policy driven, but also the same holds for housing rents. All-encompassing, uniform rent control policies that cover the whole country imply that amenity (or agglomeration) effects will simply not show up in rental prices because prices (and quantities) are precluded from reacting to demand effects that would result from people preferring certain rental locations over others.

7 Live performances include both classical concerts, opera, dance and theatre performances, popular music and musicals. The number of performances is determined using data from ticket services and calendars used to advertise the programmed performances.

8 See www.vi.nl, 2006/.

9 To deal with this, and only for those amenity variables where data availability would allow one to do so, the general model was also estimated with lagged (t – 1) values for the amenity variables; this does not change the basic results.