The value of centrality: an analysis for the Metropolitan Barcelona

Abstract

In the literature, it is widely accepted that accessibility is a basic pillar on the spatial formation of real estate values. Nonetheless, in such studies, accessibility has been reduced to the distance or generalised cost form a given site to the centre or group of centres.

In this paper it is suggested a new approach that differs in two points: 1) firstly, it departs from the hypothesis that accessibility is a multidimensional attribute (i.e. it is compound by different variables), 2) with a continuous spatial distribution which is not dichotomous (i.e. centre/no centre). With these premises it is calibrated a hedonic price model where the variable to explain is the listing price coming from a sample of flats in the Metropolitan Region of Barcelona, and the explaining variables are those affiliated to architectonic and locative attributes including the centrality level. The centrality index is, by itself, interesting, since it is built up departing from the analysis of the spatial-temporal behaviour of population. Such an analysis uses data derived from trip-chain from the quotidian mobility survey.

The results suggest that, after controlling for architectonic attributes of flats, the socioeconomics of neighbours is the main predictive element for residential values, after such indicator appear in the model the centrality attributes. In Barcelona, a multicentral metropolis (with different centrality gradients) the socio-residential segregation of population seems to have a higher influence over prices than centrality attributes of zones.