The effect of accessibility on retail rents: testing integration value as a measure of geographic location

Abstract

This article investigates cross-sectional variation in retail rents on the micro level, i.e. differences in rent for shops on street X compared to shops on street Y. Retail rents from the inner city of Stockholm are analysed. Free standing shops dominate the database (i.e. not located in malls). Differences in rent across locations is modelled with distance to the city centre, distance to sub-centres within inner city Stockholm, city part dummies and so-called integration values. Integration values have shown a strong correlation to pedestrian and other types of traffic. Loosely speaking, the integration value for a particular location in an urban area is the average number of turns a pedestrian must make to reach other locations in the city. In this study it is interpreted as a measure of accessibility. It is hypothesised that locations with high (low) integration values typically have high (low) retail rent. Integration values are found to complement the traditional location measures distance to city centre/sub-centres and city part dummies. Integration values can be calculated for urban areas that have not yet been built. They may, thus, be useful in the planning of new urban areas and for predicting retail rents.

Where and how much?

“…These results expand the growing literature strand of Space Syntax in the context of the urban economy (e.g. Di Pinto et al, 2019;Enström et al, 2008;Law et al, 2017;Matthews et al, 2007;Netzell, 2012;Xiao et al, 2016a). Moreover, the hypothesis that geometric access not only capitalizes land at its location but also as a type of resource that can be reached by common transport modes was demonstrated to hold.…”

“…Urban economies are tightly linked to these dynamics as certain land uses benefit from these flows based on a maximum profitability rationale (Hillier, 2007a). Positive correlations between SSx with real estate values and construction density support such a relation (Kim et al, 2002;Matthews et al, 2007;Netzell, 2012).…”

“…Only a representation of a road network is needed for the analysis. Previous work has already reported associations between SSx metrics with relevant urban phenomena: flows of people (Hajrasouliha & Yin, 2015), land use and construction density (Hillier, Greene & Desyllas, 2000;Hillier et al, 2010;Kim & Sohn, 2002;van Nes, Berghauser-Pont & Mashhoodi, 2011) and real estate values (Matthews & Turnbull, 2007;Netzell, 2012).…”

Mapping Urban Accessibility in Data Scarce Contexts Using Space Syntax and Location-Based Methods

“…Urban economies are tightly linked to these dynamics as certain land uses benefit from these flows based on a maximum profitability rationale (Hillier 1996). Positive correlations between SSx with real estate values and construction density support such a relation (Matthews and Turnbull 2007;Kim and Sohn 2002;Netzell 2012). It follows that we can expect a positive correlation between accessibility as analysed in SSx and location-based accessibility to various land uses that follow an economic rationale, or service type of activities where the purpose is to be reachable.…”

“…Only a representation of a roads network is needed for the analysis. Previous work has already reported associations between SSx metrics with relevant urban phenomena: flows of people (Hajrasouliha and Yin 2015), land use and construction density (Kim and Sohn 2002;Hillier et al 2000;van Nes et al 2011;Hillier et al 2010) and real estate values (Matthews and Turnbull 2007;Netzell 2012).…”