Evaluating the Impact of Urban Blue Space Accessibility on Housing Price: A Spatial Quantile Regression Approach Applied in Changsha, China

Urban nature spaces are increasingly recognized as essential urban features providing crucial amenities to the residents' health and well-being. While many studies have been conducted focusing on the influence of green spaces on house prices, very few have explored the impact of urban blue spaces. In this study, we analyzed the proximity effects of different types and sizes of urban blue spaces on property value in Changsha metropolis, China, and examined the spatial quantile effect across different housing prices. A two-stage instrumental method (2SLS) hedonic model was employed to evaluate the impact of different types of urban blue space: river (mainstream and tributary), wetland park, and lakes (large, medium, and small). Spatial quantile regression (SQR) was then used to measure the spatial effect of accessibility on various house price ranges. The 2SLS results show that, except for small-sized lakes, proximity to blue spaces significantly increases property value. Analysis of the SQR model reveals that proximity to major blue spaces increases the marginal willingness-to-pay among homebuyers of high-priced properties, while ordinary blue spaces are more attractive to buyers of low- and medium-priced houses. This may be broadly related to the level of education, utility, and sensitivity to ecosystem services across income groups. Based on these findings, we recommend that urban planners adopt different strategies to promote space utilization efficiency. This is one of the few studies that analyze the capitalization of blue space accessibility in house prices across different quantiles. By categorizing blue spaces and employing the SQR model, this study found the effect of blue spaces on housing prices to be heterogeneous, providing new perspectives to the existing literature.