The heterogeneity of residents’ preference over a wide array of services, provided by a master planned community (MPC)

ABSTRACT

The study estimated an average Californian’s preference over a variety of attributes provided by Master Planned Communities (MPC) – (1) Access to Natural Park & Urban amenities, (2) Access to HOA amenities, (3) Frequency of Social Gatherings and (4) Landscape Aesthetic. The study estimated conditional logit (CL), 2-class latent class (2 C-LCM) and 2-class latent class–random parameter models (2 CLC-RPM), to explore respondents’ varying preferences over those services, and found that people in our sample perceived the above-mentioned attributes as positive amenities, although the frequency of social gatherings provided by communities was viewed as the least important amenity. The results also showed that younger and relatively wealthier respondents were more likely to value MPC-driven services higher than their older and poorer counterparts. Also, the results from 2 CLC-RPM with attitudinal membership variables show that people in MPC-lover class tend to believe building MPCs promote school quality and opportunities for social gatherings.

KEYWORDS:

• Master planned communities
• choice experiment
• 2-class latent class- random parameter logit model (2LCM-RPL)

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. In most of choice experiment studies, open space is measured/defined in term of % of tree canopy, vegetations, open, forest and undeveloped lands, etc., within a particular buffer surrounding a property. In other words, our definition of open space can be categorized into cluster 1, categorized by Lee (2019).

2. According to World Population Review (2019), California ranks 20^th in terms of population growth since 2010.

3. Indeed blog (2018) reports the best cities for job seekers in 2018 in terms of four categories – (1) salary/cost of living, (2) work-life balance, (3) job security/advancement opportunities and (4) entry to barriers to local labor market. It shows that six Californian cities lead the rankings, and those cities include San Jose, San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles, Sacramento and Riverside.

4. Gordon (2004) refers to this type of housing units as planned developments.

5. According to Beyer (2018), approximately 35,000 people moved from LA to the Inland Empire between 2007 and 2011.

6. According to United States Census of Bureau (2018), the median values of owner-occupied housing units between 2013 and 2017 in LA, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties are $495,800, $304,500, and $202,100, respectively.

7. Results are available upon request from the principle author.

8. We also include attitudinal variables shown in Figures 1 and 2, and estimated 2LC-RPM. However, the results from those models were excluded because all membership variables were statistically insignificant.