Growing demand for traditionally designed subdivisions?

Christopher Bitter, "Subdivision Vintage and Housing Prices: Do Home Buyers Value Traditional Development?", Urban Studies 51 (2014): 5

The take-away: Given that traditional neighborhood developments are scarce, it is difficult for studies to produce statistically convincing results about how much people value them relative to other kinds of developments. To account for this difficulty, this study analyzes the value of pre-1940s developments in Tucson relative to modern equivalents, controlling for locational and structural characteristics in order to understand the value garnered by ‘traditional’ aspects alone. 

Abstract: New Urbanism and traditional neighbourhood development (TND) have been championed  as solutions to the problems associated with post-war suburban sprawl. However, they have yet to capture a substantial share of the US housing market. The market context for TND is not well understood as the paucity of TND makes it difficult to study directly. This paper takes a novel approach by focusing on the market for ‘traditional’ development itself, defined as subdivisions recorded prior to World War II, in the sprawling Tucson, Arizona, MSA. The results of the hedonic analysis demonstrate that home buyers value the features embodied in traditional development, as homes in subdivisions platted before 1940 command premiums over those in their modern counterparts, even after carefully controlling for locational and structural characteristics. Moreover, the analysis finds that the premiums have increased through time, which suggests growing demand for traditionally designed subdivisions. 

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