4. Urban Configuration and House Price

House price can be thought of as a buyer’s evaluation of a bundle of intrinsic and extrinsic attributes of a housing unit, including structural, locational, neighborhood, and environment attributes (Freeman III 1979a). Many researchers have examined the contribution to house price of specific sets of factors. Structural characteristics typically include building type, numbers of bedrooms, bathrooms, garden, heating, and swimming pool (Follain and Jimenez 1985; Sirmans et al. 2005). Locational variables attempt to model accessibility to various sources of either positive or negative externalities, such as the distance to CBD, local commercial centers, parks, and pollution sources. Environmental characteristics include air quality (Freeman III 1979) and noise pollution (Bateman and Executive 2001; Day et al. 2007), and distance to the open space (Bolitzer and Netusil 2000). Neighborhood characteristics (a subset of locational attributes) typically include quality of school (Dubin and Goodman 1982; Haurin and Brasington 1996; Downes and Zabel 2002; Debrezion et al. 2006), and socioeconomic and racial composition (King and Mieszkowski 1973; Harris 1999; Ioannides 2002).