The public demand for open space: The case of Connecticut communities

At both the state and national levels, public policies are being designed t o stimulate the demand for locally owned open space. Yet very little is kno wn about the factors that influence the demand for open space and the sensi tivity of demand to price and income. To fill the void, this study uses dat a for Connecticut cities and towns to estimate the public demand for open s pace. The empirical results suggest that the demand for open space is relat ively insensitive to changes in price but highly responsive to changes in i ncome. The findings also show that federal and state open space may tend to crowd out locally owned open space and that locally owned open space repre sents a highly congestable good. Finally, the analysis indicates that priva tely owned open space is not a good substitute for locally owned public ope n space. (C) 2001 Academic Press.