22 THE HEALTH BENEFITS OF PARKS AND THEIR ECONOMIC IMPACTS Methods for Quantifying the Economic Impacts of Park Health Benefits The evidence for quantifying the specific health impact of parks and green space is an emerging field of study with fewer examples of rigorous research. Despite that, there are promising models both emerging from the park health field as well as from other aspects of park impact. Hedonic Modeling A substantial amount of literature measures parks’ and green space’s impact on property values using methods such as hedonic modeling (Crompton 2001; Harnik and Welle 2009; Jim and Chen 2010). Hedonic models use property transactions to control for the characteristics of a given property and their contribution to the final sale price. Proximity to park space has been shown to be a significant variable affecting sale price and future outcomes on property value. Although these models have not been used to explicitly reference health, they do capture the perceived benefit of parks to a homebuyer, of which perceived health benefits are a part. Distance and quality of park space is a key determinant in hedonic value: both proximity to a park and that park’s characteristics (such as users’ perception of its safety and the park’s programming) can increase or reduce overall benefit for the user (Trust for Public Land 2013). This in turn impacts the user’s ability to obtain physical, mental, and social health benefits that can be gained from time spent in a park or green space. In Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, and in Portland, Oregon, homes adjacent to or within 1,500 feet or less of park space had higher property values than those located within a half-mile of a park (Crompton and Nicholls 2020). This was similarly observed for single-family homes sold between 1990 and 1999 in Greenville, South Carolina (Espey and Owusu-Edusei 2001). Moreover, households are willing to pay more in housing costs to live close to a park or green space (Harnik and Welle 2009; McConnell and Walls 2005). However, capturing the assessed value of parks in singularity can be challenging because of inconsistency in the data and methodology of hedonic assessments and subjectivity concerning the localities studied (McConnell and Walls 2005; Trust for Public Land 2013). Further hedonic modeling offers a means of analyzing the negative economic impacts associated with gentrification. Evidence suggests that new parks can contribute to gentrification where equitable development practices are not incorporated (Jelks et al. 2021; Kim and Wu 2021). Although multiple studies have quantified the positive side of increased property values caused by park space (through
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