Impact of urban landscape and environmental externalities on spatial differentiation of housing prices in Yangzhou City

In this study, housing prices data for residential quarters from the period 2001–2012 were used and Global Differentiation Index (GDI) was established to measure the overall differentiation trend in housing prices in Yangzhou City, eastern China. Then the influence of the natural landscape and environment on prices of global housing market and housing submarkets was evaluated by the hedonic price model. The results are shown as follows. (1) There have been increasing gaps among housing prices since 2001. In this period, the differentiation trend has shown an upward fluctuation, which has been coupled with the annual growth rate of housing prices. (2) The spatial distribution of residential quarters of homogenous prices has changed from clustered in 2001 into dispersed in 2012. (3) Natural landscape and environmental externalities clearly influence spatial differentiation of housing prices. (4) In different housing submarkets, the influence of natural landscape and environmental externalities are varied. Natural landscape characteristics have significant impact on housing prices of ordinary commercial houses and indemnificatory houses, while the impact of environmental characteristics have obvious influence on housing prices of cottages and villas.