1887

OECD Environment Working Papers

This series is designed to make available to a wider readership selected studies on environmental issues prepared for use within the OECD. Authorship is usually collective, but principal authors are named. The papers are generally available only in their original language English or French with a summary in the other if available.

English

Provision of urban environmental amenities

A policy toolkit for inclusiveness

Environmental amenities provide a range of direct and indirect benefits in cities, and amenity provision often figures within policy portfolios to advance sustainability in urban areas. As environmental pressures and urban populations increase, it will be necessary to find ways to ensure that environmental policies do not contribute to existing inequalities in these areas. This report synthesises empirical research on the impact of environmental amenities on housing prices, examines implications on housing affordability, and offers perspectives on how negative impacts can be mitigated. The report finds that the provision of environmental amenities tends to raise housing prices, which reduces affordability, especially among renters and low-income households with reduced access to mortgages. The report concludes that there is scope to accompany amenity provision with complementary measures to mitigate distributional impacts and outlines policy avenues in that regard.

English

Keywords: open space, housing affordability, green gentrification, environmental amenities, provision, public good
JEL: O18: Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth / Economic Development / Economic Development: Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure; Q52: Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics / Environmental Economics / Pollution Control Adoption and Costs; Distributional Effects; Employment Effects; H41: Public Economics / Publicly Provided Goods / Public Goods; D63: Microeconomics / Welfare Economics / Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement; R38: Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics / Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location / Production Analysis and Firm Location: Government Policy
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