Abstract
The presence of open space is often regarded as one of the considerations that enhance the quality of the living experience of populations in urban regions and cities and that enhance the long-term sustainability of urban environments. However, the provision of open space comes at a price. This chapter examines people’s willingness to support tax increases for the preservation of open space in a fast-growing urban area where pressure to marketize land to its highest and best use is high. In particular, we study how a respondent’s socioeconomic characteristics influence their willingness to pay in the city of Charlotte, United States. We use and analyze detailed survey data at the household level collected from a phone interview survey conducted in the Charlotte, North Carolina, area. The econometric models allow us to identify a systematic response bias which arises from protest zeros and respondents’ tendency to underreport their willingness. Results show that a respondent’s willingness is affected by the respondent’s gender, age, ethnicity, and level of educational attainment. An individual is more willing to support if the individual is younger, Caucasian, and has reached a higher level of education. Individual behaviors are aggregated to obtain the regional level of willingness. Finally, results reveal that respondents have a well-marked tendency to underreport their willingness to support and report protest zeros in the survey.
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Notes
- 1.
In a recent meta-analysis, Brander and Koetse (2011) conclude that estimated values of open space are also influenced by methodological differences in study design.
- 2.
It is possible that respondents might overreport their willingness to pay in the survey. A slight modification of our econometric model (i.e., reversing the order of the three options of tax increases in the estimation process) allows us to easily test if there is such overreporting in our data sample. The results suggest that the chances that a respondent who actually prefers slightly higher taxes would select much higher taxes or slightly higher taxes are zero. The chance of a respondent choosing slightly higher taxes while their intended choice is the status quo is also zero.
- 3.
To conduct the survey, a random digit dial sample of residential telephone numbers was purchased from a private survey sampling firm. The random sample ensures that each household telephone in the county has an equal possibility of being called. Within each household, one adult (18 years or older) was designated by a random procedure to be respondent for the survey. This random selection procedure was designed to ensure that respondents of all ages and both genders were included in the survey process.
- 4.
We also estimated the models by dropping them from the data sample. The results from this alternative analysis are almost the same and are available from the authors.
- 5.
In the empirical analyses reported in section “Empirical Results,” given the high number of missing data, the income variable is approximated by home ownership dummy and the dummies on the levels of educational attainment.
- 6.
There are no choice-specific independent variables in our data sample. The discrete choice models presented in this chapter can be extended to consider such variables.
- 7.
Results from the ordered logit model are available from the authors upon request. As for the response bias estimated from the response bias model with ordered logit specification, it is found that the respondents whose intended choices are much higher taxes have about a 63.34 % chance to select slightly higher taxes during the phone interview. A respondent will have 31.22 % chance of choosing no tax increases while their intended choice is much higher taxes or slightly higher taxes.
- 8.
Results are available upon request from the authors.
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Acknowledgements
This work was financially supported by the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI) of North Carolina and the United States NSF ULTRA-EX Program (Grant #0948181). Professor Thill's work has also been partially funded by the Knight Professorship in Public Policy at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
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Wang, C., Thill, JC., Meentemeyer, R. (2017). Who Wants More Open Space? Study of Willingness to Be Taxed to Preserve Open Space in an Urban Environment. In: Shibusawa, H., Sakurai, K., Mizunoya, T., Uchida, S. (eds) Socioeconomic Environmental Policies and Evaluations in Regional Science. New Frontiers in Regional Science: Asian Perspectives, vol 24. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-0099-7_7
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