Title: Spatio-Temporal Modeling of Urban Greening
Abstract: Recent availability of high resolution data allow us to empirically investigate built environment interventions that are intended to improve urban neighborhoods. We will evaluate a specific built environment intervention, the greening of vacant lots in Philadelphia. We use sophisticated spatio-temporal regression models as well as various matching strategies to estimate the impact of greening on neighborhood safety and real estate value. We find that greening is associated with significant reductions in crime and increases in real estate value, but these effects are differ substantially depending on the economic and land use context of the surrounding neighborhood. We will also discuss ongoing research to evaluate the impact of urban greening on mitigating increases in temperature at the local neighborhood level.
