Environmental quality is one of the most important issues faced by contemporary urban and regional policy. Amenities such as access to the natural environment, attractive neighbourhood characteristics and high quality public goods and services, play a direct role in determining where people choose to live and how much they are willing to do so. Likewise, negative environmental conditions, such as contamination, influence the real estate markets and the 'value' of a region. Increasingly, regions become winners or losers based on the quality of life they offer their inhabitants. Bringing together a team of leading scholars, this book addresses the issues of environmental valuation, answering questions such as: What kinds of features matter? How large of an affect do they have? How do they affect the spatial distribution of the population? And how should the value that people place on their environment affect urban and regional policy?

The quality of the environment in which people live, work, and play influences to no small degree the quality of life itself. The environment can be satisfying and attractive and provide scope for individual development or it can be poisonous, irritating and stunting. The papers in this volume, first published in 1969, are concerned with the urban environment – in which the majority of Americans live – or, more accurately, with the environment of urbanites, for the concern extends to outlying areas where urban dwellers visit and play. The chapters aim to provide a better understanding of the natural resource elements in the urban environment, and will be of interest to students of environmental studies and human geography.

This edited volume compiles a set of papers that present various applications of spatial analysis, both traditional and contemporary, on diverse subjects in a wide range of contexts. The volume is dedicated to the memory of the late Professor Pavlos Kanaroglou, McMaster University, Canada, who greatly contributed to scientific and applied research on spatial analysis. In his honor, the book offers a selection of various spatial analysis approaches to the study of contemporary urban transportation, land use, and air pollution issues. The first part of the book discusses selected general issues in spatial analysis; ontologies, agent-based modelling and accessibility analysis. The second part deals with urban transportation analysis and modelling issues; agent-based activity/travel microsimulation, bottleneck models, public transit use, freight transport and connected automated vehicles impact assessment. Part three focuses on integrated land use and transport analysis, discussing the land value impacts of public transport infrastructure, the role of transport provision on business evolution and commute distance considerations in urban relocation. The fourth part, on travel-related air pollution analysis, presents the development of a geo-information software for mapping Aerosol Optical Thickness in urban environments and the development of a neighborhood level, real time, internet-enabled, air pollution map in the Canadian urban context. This book will appeal to academics, researchers, graduate students, consultants, and practitioners working on topics related to spatial analysis, land use and transport analysis, planning and decision making, and air pollution studies.

Urban sustainability has become a political and social agenda of global significance, of which real estate is an integral dimension. Sustainable urban development includes much more than ‘green building’ standards, yet in practice, other aspects such land use plans and locations are often overlooked. This book demonstrates that the issue of sustainable development stretches far beyond the hitherto dominating agenda based on ‘green’ (i.e. environmentally and ecologically sustainable) buildings. In doing so, it presents a novel framework based on the concept of economic sustainability of real estate locations, drawing connections with the global financial crisis and housing price bubble discourse. It argues for the need to better integrate social, cultural and economic dimensions into the real estate sustainability agenda. It also explores the role of location, and especially the image aspect therein. Trends in consumer choice are important to the way these dimensions are appreciated in decisions about investment, development, valuation and other activities of the production, consumption and governance of the built environment. This book will be of interest to private and public sector practitioners of real estate valuation as well as scholars of urban studies, geography, economics, urban planning and environmental studies.

A new framework for understanding the underpinnings of real estate property value and the role it plays in the larger economy Value in a Changing Built Environment examines the professional foundations on which the valuation exercise and the valuation profession rest. Written by noted experts in the field, the book addresses the often limited understanding of the concept of property value by explaining the intrinsic linkages between economic, environmental, social, and cultural measures and components of property value. The book offers a framework that paves the way towards a more holistic approach to property value. Value in a Changing Built Environment unwraps many of the traditional assumptions that have underpinned market participants’ decision making over the last few decades. The authors explore the concept that a blindfold application of valuation theories and approaches adopted from finance is unlikely to be able to cope with the nature of property as an economic and public good. This vital resource: Explains the criteria for making estimates of value that can be applied worldwide Offers an integrated approach to property value and the valuation processes Captures the often illusive intangibles such as environmental performance into valuation Addresses a market failure to account for wider criteria on building performance Value in a Changing Built Environment examines how real estate valuation plays a pivotal role in decision making and how can a new body of knowledge improve the practice in both business and social domains.