Brandon Hina

Professor Wooten

Natural Resource Economics

18 March 2020

Project 4: Natural Amenities

There are a number of different things that draw people to different areas. Everyone has

different lifestyles that make them more likely to move to specific places. The United States

Department of Agriculture found specific factors that draw people to an area. These factors

include warm winter, winter sun, temperature summer, low summer humidity, topographic

variation, and water area (USDA, 2019). The USDA created a scale for these amenities that

assigns a numerical value to each state and county in the United States. The US natural amenity

median is established at a value of 0. The higher the value of the amenity, the higher the amount

of natural capital there is in that area. In this project, I created visualizations that evaluate these

amenities further.

In a Washington Post article, by Christopher Ingraham, the USDA natural amenity scale

is analyzed. Ingraham looks at all of the counties in the US and shows how they change with

each of the 6 factors of natural amenities. He highlights some of the most and least desirable

counties in the country. From 1970 to 1996, the counties that had low amenity scores lost

population, while counties with a high amenity score gained population (Ingraham, 2015). One

of the six factors of these scores is the amount of winter sunlight a county gets. In a different

article by Ingraham, Where America’s Sunniest and Least-Sunny Places Are, he covers that

sunlight is tracked by incoming solar radiation (Ingraham, 2015). He continues, by analyzing a

NASA map that highlights the average daily sunlight of every county in the US. New Jersey
ranks below the national average. Sussex County has the highest amenity score in New Jersey

and still ranks 2,426 out of 3,111 counties in the country.

My first visualization looks at the natural amenities in each county of New Jersey. Green

describes a high amenity score. Red describes a low amenity score. Sussex County has the

highest amenity score at 1.3 and is located at the northern tip of New Jersey. Somerset county

has the lowest amenity score at -1.44 and is located approximately 20 miles south of Sussex. I

have annotated each county to make them easier to locate. Despite the counties being so close in

proximity, there are physical characteristics that can help explain this. The Appalachian

Mountain region runs through the tip of New Jersey and creates a number of different

recreational activities for its residents. It’s creeks and lakes make fishing popular in the summer,

while the mountain range makes it a skiing hotspot in the winter. I have been to Somerset county

in New Jersey and I understand why it has a low amenity score. The county is a flat area, filled

with neighborhood after neighborhood and has little recreation.

My second visualization compares the natural amenity score and unemployment rate of

each New Jersey county. The median of each variable is highlighted with dark black lines. Each

mark represents a county and the bigger the mark is the bigger the labor force is. I thought

unemployment rate would help explain the natural amenity score in New Jersey but it doesn’t.

Unemployment Rate is calculated by dividing the number of people unemployed by the labor

force, and then multiplying by 100. Sussex and Somerset’s unemployment rates only vary by

.06%. However, this doesn’t mean that unemployment can’t help explain natural amenities in

other state’s counties. Another variable of this graph is ruralness. Ruralness is measured on a 0 to

9 scale, with 0 being metropolitan urban areas and 9 being areas of low urban population. The

more purple the mark is, the more rural the county is. One correlation I found is that the
combinationof ruralness and low labor forces produces high levels of unemployment. The 3

counties with the highest unemployment rates exhibit this.

My last visualization is a hex map that provides the natural amenity score of every state

in the US. This map uses the same color scale as my first visualization. Green indicates high

amenity values and red indicates low amenity vales. If you look at the map, the west coast and

sunbelt states have the highest amenity values. The Midwest displays the lowest amenity

scores of any other area in the country. California is the state with the highest score, at 6.729.

Minnesota is the state with the lowest score, at-2.877. In the tooltip, I included the average

temperature of the winter and summer in each state. Those east coast states have nice summers,

while the Midwest states have extremely cold winters. The average winter temperature in

Minnesota is 10 degrees Fahrenheit.

This project covers the topics we discussed in lesson 3 on valuing the environment. More

specifically, the areas that are desirable and have high amenity scores can be explained by

revealed preference models. These preference methods are determined by watching how people

behave. In 1970-1996 the number of people in these desirable locations grew while the

population in non-desirable location fell. People preferred to live in areas that had nicer weather

and more things to do. Every person who moved during that period put a value on the move.

They decided that living in a more desirable location was worth an amount of money and that

became their willingness to pay. Some of these people moved to be closer to certain activities

and the move helped lower their travel cost for those activities. For example, if someone moved

to Colorado so they could be closer to ski resorts, they would be lowering the traveling cost for

every time they go skiing. There are so many different factors that go into determining these

natural amenity scores.

 References

Chambers, Matt (2015). Inverted Hexagon Shape File.

Ingraham, C. (2015, August 17). Every county in America, ranked by scenery and climate.

Retrieved March 17, 2020, from

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/08/17/every-county-in-america-

ranked-by-natural-beauty/

Ingraham, C. (2015, July 13). Map: Where America's sunniest and least-sunny places are.

Retrieved March 17, 2019, from

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/07/13/map-where-americas-

sunniest-and-least-sunny-places-are/

Taylor, Kevin. (2017). Hex Map Plot Coordinates Excel File

US Dept. of Agriculture Economic Research Service. (2019). Atlas of Rural and Small-Town

America Selected Variables.

US Dept. of Agriculture Economic Research Service. (1999). Natural amenities scale (including

the 6 components) for U.S. counties.

US Department of Agriculture Research Service. (2019, August 20). Natural Amenities Scale.

Retrieved March 17, 2020, from https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/natural-

amenities-scale/