An empirical examination of traditional neighborhood development

This study analyzes the impact of the new urbanism on single-family home pr ices. Specifically, we explore the price differential that homebuyers pay f or houses in new urbanist developments relative to houses in conventional s uburban developments. Using data on over 5,000 single-family home sales fro m 1994 to 1997 in three different neighborhoods, hedonic regression results reveal that consumers pay more for homes in new urbanist communities than those in conventional suburban developments. Further analyses indicate that the price premium is not attributable to differences in improvement age an d other housing characteristics.