Cities 91 (2019) 165–179

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Cities
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cities

Analyzing housing prices in Shanghai with open data: Amenity, accessibility T

and urban structure☆
⁎
Han Lia, Yehua Dennis Weib,c, , Yangyi Wub, Guang Tiand
a
Department of Geography and Regional Studies, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL 33124, USA
b
Department of Geography, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112-9155, USA
c
Department of Land Management, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310029, China
d
Department of Planning and Urban Studies, University of New Orleans, New Orleans, LA 70148, USA

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Skyrocketing housing prices in China's megacities have generated broad concerns. By integrating open data from
Housing price Lianjia.com, Dianping.com, Mobike.com, and Baidu Map POI, we analyze spatial patterns of apartment prices
Hedonic model and their association with local attributes in Shanghai. We find that Shanghai's residential market still has a
Amenity monocentric structure because of the centralized distribution of public transport facilities and amenities.
Open data
Hedonic models further confirm that structural attributes, accessibility, as well as public and private service
Shanghai
amenities significantly shape the real estate market. These factors also are differentiated so as to form a pattern
of concentric rings. In the inner-city and expanded inner-city areas, public service amenities such as parks,
schools, hospitals, and banks, as well as private service amenities such as entertainment, shopping, and re-
sidential service facilities, boost housing prices. In the suburbs, better access to bike sharing, bus stops, and
metro stations are the top preferences for apartment buyers. Our study also indicates that the Chinese gov-
ernment needs to make public and private services more accessible, not only spatially in urban peripheries and
villages, but also institutionally to lower income families who cannot afford apartments in expensive neigh-
borhoods.

1. Introduction
China has expanded its urban housing reforms since the 1990s,
which has fundamentally altered its residential markets (Ahuja,
Cheung, Han, Porter, & Zhang, 2010). The commercialization of urban
housing, the land revenue system, culture of housing demand, and
rapid urbanization have stimulated the blooming of housing markets in
metropolises (Hui & Yue, 2006; Liu, Yue, Fan, & Song, 2015; Wei,
2017). Using Shanghai as an example, from 2009 to 2016 the average
unit transaction price of pre-owned apartments skyrocketed from
19,810 to nearly 52,140 yuan/m2, with an approximate inflation-fixed
growth rate of 112.41% (CREI, 2017; SRETC, 2017; SSB, 2010, 2017).
At the same time, the discretionary income per capita in Shanghai in-
creased from 28,838 yuan in 2009 to 54,305 yuan in 2016, an inflation-
fixed growth rate of 51.97% (SSB, 2010, 2017). The growth of income
was much slower than housing prices, which further intensified the
problem of poor housing affordability.
Studies have explored the dynamics of China's real estate market.
Factors identified influencing housing prices include the distance to the
CBD (central business district) (e.g., Chen & Hao, 2008; Shi & Li, 2006;
Wen & Tao, 2015), net migration rate (Chen, Guo, & Wu, 2011), the
formation of commercial and economic zones (Hao & Chen, 2007),
service amenities such as educational (Wen, Zhang, & Zhang, 2014) and
public transport facilities (Xiao et al., 2017), as well as natural ame-
nities such as air quality (e.g., Chen & Li, 2017), lake and mountain
views (Jim & Chen, 2007), and urban open spaces (e.g., Jiao & Liu,
2010).
Shanghai is China's leading global city, and its population keeps
growing by attracting a large number of job-seekers from other cities as
well as rural migrants (Timberlake, Wei, Ma, & Hao, 2014). The size of
the floating population increased from 3.87 million in 2000 to 9.81
million in 2015 (CSSB, 2001, 2016). Similar to other global cities, the
combination of population growth and skyrocketing housing prices
naturally leads to a new geography of inequalities, such as social po-
larization, residential segregation, and poor housing affordability,
which threaten Shanghai's sustainable development and social stability

☆
We would like to acknowledge the funding of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41701183) and the Ford Foundation (129647).
⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: han.li@miami.edu (H. Li), wei@geog.utah.edu (Y.D. Wei), yangyi.wu@geog.utah.edu (Y. Wu), tianskyge@gmail.com (G. Tian).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2018.11.016
Received 17 May 2018; Received in revised form 19 October 2018; Accepted 22 November 2018
Available online 28 November 2018
0264-2751/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
H. Li et al.
(Shatkin, 2007). However, existing studies have largely focused on
gentrification, the price bubble, temporal volatility of prices, and the
role of local governmental regulations (He, 2007; Hui & Yue, 2006).
The spatial dynamics of Shanghai's housing market, especially the role
of service amenities, have been less studied (Haila, 2000). With the
advance of social media, the newly available location-based open data
sources provide an innovative means to examine the geography of
Shanghai's housing market at the household level. This approach will
not only contribute to the literature on housing studies and urban
geography, but will also provide a valuable reference for China's
housing policies and sustainable urbanization.
Relying on open data from Lianjia.com, Dianping.com, and Baidu
Map, this study examines spatial patterns and determinants of re-
sidential markets in Shanghai, with an explicit emphasis on the role of
urban structure, accessibility, and service amenities. This paper seeks to
answer following questions: Are service amenities, such as parks,
schools, hospital, banks, entertainment, shopping, and residential ser-
vice facilities, as well as access to sharing bikes, bus stops, and metro
stations, positively associated with local residential property values?
Are these relationships sensitive to the pattern of urban concentric
rings? We analyze spatial patterns of unit prices and relate them to
accessibility and service amenities. We also examine the underlying
mechanism of how these factors affect housing prices in Shanghai.
2. Literature review
There is a large body of literature focusing on the determinants of
housing markets in both developed and developing countries. In studies
based on the hedonic pricing model, market configurations, accessi-
bility variables, and locational amenities have been widely employed to
explain spatial variations of housing prices from an economic and social
perspective (Li, Wei, Yu, & Tian, 2016). Moreover, the urban spatial
structure—for instance, whether it is relatively monocentric or poly-
centric—has also been linked to housing prices submarkets and re-
sidential segregation have been found (Wen & Tao, 2015).
2.1. Accessibility, amenity and housing prices
Public transport facilities, such as metro stations and bus routes,
have been prevalently added to the hedonic model to achieve more
precise estimations of residential markets (Concas, 2013). The debate
over the relationship between public transport facilities and housing
markets focuses on the trade-off effect. On the one hand, transportation
infrastructure can increase housing prices by improving accessibility to
opportunities and services. On the other hand, changes in accessibility
that increase noise pollution and traffic intensity levels cause a decrease
in property prices (Tian, Wei, & Li, 2017). Furthermore, effects also
vary across transport modes. The effect of highway development is
significantly negative, while urban rail transit facilities and bus routes
markedly elevate real estate prices (Agostini & Palmucci, 2008; Zhang,
Liu, Hang, Yao, & Shi, 2016).
Service amenities include public service facilities such as schools,
urban parks, and hospitals, as well as private facilities such as shopping
centers, entertainment, and cultural and recreational facilities such as
restaurants, museums, opera houses, and sports venues (Glaeser,
Kominers, Luca, & Naik, 2015). Previous research has shown a sig-
nificant and positive connection between educational facilities and
households' location choice in both developing and developed nations.
In the United States, scholars have found that the price of a house is
significantly associated with the exam scores of its nearest public school
(Black & Machin, 2011; Kane, Riegg, & Staiger, 2006). In China, Wen
et al. (2014) and Wu, Cheng, Chen, Hammel, and Wu (2014) found that
the presence of educational facilities such as elementary, middle, and
high schools substantially raised property values and even contributed
to the process of gentrification in the inner-city area.
Urban parks have been found to be an amenity with mixed effects
166
Cities 91 (2019) 165–179
on housing prices (Crompton, 2001; Netusil, 2013). Using Guangzhou
and Shenzhen as examples, Chen and Li (2017), Wu, Song, Liang, Wang,
and Lin (2017) and Wu, Ye, Du, and Luo (2017) found that the views of
and accessibility to community parks and city parks both had positive
effects on housing prices. In the United States, the situation depends on
urban patterns. In a sprawling urban area such as Salt Lake County,
Utah, studies have pinpointed an insignificant and negative effect of
urban parks since many people prefer to drive to parks (Li et al., 2016;
Tian et al., 2017). However, in a compact city like Portland, Oregon, by
treating urban parks as a sort of landscape, Netusil (2013) demon-
strated a significantly positive relationship between proximity to urban
parks and housing prices.
Studies of the role of public hospitals in this regard are relatively
limited. A few studies have included the performance and locations of
hospitals in the hedonic model and achieved contradictory results be-
tween the United States and China. Li et al. (2016) found that hospitals
were negatively associated with housing values in the United States,
since high-level healthcare facilities are concentrated in the urban
centers. Also, people don't want to live very close to hospitals because
of the ambulance sirens and traffic in general (Tian et al., 2017).
However, for China, Wang et al. (2012) pointed out that hospitals near
communities were positively correlated with housing values in multiple
megacities.
In terms of private service amenities, scholarly attention has been
mainly paid to entertainment and shopping facilities. In this regard,
shopping centers have been proven to have a significantly positive
impact on values of surrounding residential properties in Hong Kong,
Canada, and the United States (Hui, Chau, Pun, & Law, 2007; Rosiers,
Lagana, Thériault, & Beaudoin, 1996). As with other sources of ex-
ternalities, a shopping center exerts attraction effects which impact
households' location choice by providing the relative level of con-
venience gained from easy access to shopping and entertainment fa-
cilities as well as from travel costs savings.
2.2. Urban structure, submarkets, and housing prices
The association between urban spatial structure and housing prices
has also been examined. Traditionally, scholars merely added the CBD
distance related variables into hedonic models. Existing literature in
China is primarily dominated by the monocentric hypothesis which is
built based on the bid-rent theory. In Shanghai, Beijing, and
Guangzhou, a significant housing price gradient of decrease with the
distance to CBD has been found (Hao & Chen, 2007; Jim & Chen, 2007;
Ma & Li, 2003; Wang & Huang, 2007).
Urban structure is closely associated with housing prices with re-
spect to residential differentiation and division of submarkets. The re-
sidential differentiation in terms of socioeconomic diversification
caused by China's suburbanization and inner-city redevelopment also
appears sensitive to the distance to CBD (He, 2007, 2012; Qin & Han,
2013). Given the centralization of public services and high-paying job
opportunities, residential differentiation has shown a pattern of con-
centric rings in the global cities of China, such as Guangzhou, Shanghai,
and Beijing (Han & Qin, 2009). Unlike the United States where social
differentiation is often related to racial and ethnic segmentation, Chi-
na's residential differentiation is dominated by occupational and in-
come segmentation (Li, Hou, Chen, & Zhou, 2010; Wu et al., 2014). The
traditional urban cores are characterized by abundant amenities and
privatized housing, while the residents frequently are officials of the
Communist Party of China or local government. New commodity
housing mainly is found in the second ring, and most of the residents
there are producer-service workers (Feng, Zhou, & Wu, 2008; Liu et al.,
2015). The population living in urban villages located in peripheral
areas of major cities consists mainly of the migrant workers without
local household registration (Wu, 2002).
These socioeconomic and occupational variations of residence fur-
ther suggest that the pattern of concentric rings is a way to spatially
H. Li et al.
categorize housing submarkets in Shanghai. Metropolitan areas often
have multiple submarkets, characterized by functional disequilibrium
and segmentation. These submarkets can be interpreted as collections
of dwelling units offering packages of housing services that are per-
ceived as similar in terms of access to local service amenities, such as
public schools, hospitals, shopping and residential service facilities
(Páez, Long, & Farber, 2008; Páez, Uchida, & Miyamoto, 2001; Wen &
Tao, 2015). Thus, relationships between accessibility, service ame-
nities, and housing prices in Shanghai are very likely to be sensitive to
the pattern of concentric rings. The direct linkages between urban
structure, residential differentiation, and submarkets in China also
underscore the significance of conceptualizing the monocentric struc-
ture of residential segmentation in housing studies that employ the
hedonic model, especially when exploring the spatial heterogeneity of
determinants.
2.3. Urban spatial structure in Shanghai
As the leading global city in China, Shanghai's local government has
devoted to decentralize its educational, healthcare, and other service
facilities since the 2000s. According to the District Plan of Shanghai
Central City (2004–2020), the local government of Shanghai has
planned 4 public subcenters in the expanded inner-city area—Zhenru
Town in Putuo, Xujiahui District in Xuhui, Wujiaochang Town in
Hongkou, and Huamu District in Pudong. In the suburban area, the
Shanghai Master Plan (1999–2020) designed 11 new towns in the ca-
pitals of Baoshan, Jiading, Songjiang, Jinshan, Minhang, Huinan,
Qingpu, Nanqiao, and Chengqiao districts.
Accordingly, studies have evaluated the implementation of these
plans in the context of Shanghai spatial structure. By mapping re-
sidential and employment densities, scholars have found that Shanghai
still has a monocentric spatial structure (Sun, Zhang, He, & Wang,
2017). In terms of land-use change, geographers have pointed out that
the spatial pattern of urban land expansion in Shanghai is still domi-
nated by the infilling and expansion, a key characteristic of mono-
centric development, rather than leapfrog (Li, Wei, & Huang, 2014; Qiu
& Xu, 2017). Regarding the housing market, the studies of Shi and Li
(2006) and Chen and Hao (2008) both demonstrated a significant de-
cline in housing prices as the distance to CBD increases in Shanghai.
More specifically, among the 11 proposed subcenters, only the capitals
of Jiading, Songjiang, and Nanhui districts have witnessed a relatively
rapid growth in employment opportunities (Cai, Huang, & Song, 2017).
Recent research relying on mobile phone data has also found the
boundaries between inner-city and expanded inner-city areas have be-
come increasingly indistinct, which further undermines the significance
of internal subcenters (Niu, Liang, & Song, 2015).
Besides the studies focusing on identifying and categorizing the
spatial structure pattern of Shanghai, the underlying mechanisms have
also drawn scholarly attention. A qualitative project based on a lengthy
questionnaire survey showed that underdeveloped transportation in-
frastructures and low-quality shopping, education, healthcare, and en-
tertainment facilities were the critical factors in the failure of decen-
tralization and polycentric development in Shanghai (Li et al., 2016;
Sun, Shi, & Ning, 2010). Moreover, actual polycentricity in Chinese
megacities is largely due to relied on their geographical conditions, as is
the case for Nanjing, Hangzhou, and Wuhan. The cities with govern-
ment-led policies to promote polycentric development, such as
Guangzhou, Beijing, and Shanghai, have experienced a relatively slow
decentralization process (Hao & Chen, 2007; Jim & Chen, 2007; Li,
2016; Liu & Wang, 2016; Ma & Li, 2003; Murakami & Chang, 2018;
Wen & Tao, 2015). Another contribution to this monocentric structure
is the urban redevelopment projects in Shanghai. Unlike the United
States, the purpose of urban redevelopment in Shanghai is not only to
improve residents' quality of life and ensure the right to city, is also to
promote local economic growth by attracting investment in property
development (He & Wu, 2009; Mihaescu & Hofe, 2012; Wu et al.,
167
Cities 91 (2019) 165–179
2014). Therefore, locations with better investment attractiveness have
become the most critical standard for the approval of redevelopment
projects, and scholars have found that most urban redevelopment
projects in Shanghai are concentrated in the inner-city area with better
accesses to service facilities, which has intensified the over-
concentration in the urban center (Yang & Chang, 2007).
2.4. Summary
Determinants of the geography of the residential markets in China
have been explored by researchers. Nevertheless, the literature still has
three limitations. First, although studies have explored a variety of
indicators from the market, social, and cultural perspectives, some
distinguishable characteristics of Shanghai remain unexplored (Haila,
2000). For example, Shanghai still has a monocentric spatial structure,
which indicates that the decentralization of services in Shanghai is
limited. However, how this monocentric structure affects housing prices
remains unanswered. Moreover, some survey results have pointed to
the importance of shopping and entertainment in Shanghainese's daily
lives (Sun et al., 2010), but these facilities have rarely been quantita-
tively linked with housing prices. Finally, the current literature has
overemphasized the significance of the distance to CBD, and residents'
preferences with respect to urban amenities have been largely neglected
(Chen & Hao, 2008; Shi & Li, 2006).
Second, urban structure and its association with residential markets
have drawn significant scholarly attention. However, most studies
simply added variables developed from the distance to CBD into the
hedonic model (Wen & Tao, 2015). Urban structure is highly associated
with spatial patterns of residential differentiation and housing sub-
markets, which determine residents' preference. This complexity re-
quires studies exploring how the mechanism specifically varies across
urban zones based on a city's spatial structure (Jim & Chen, 2007).
Moreover, locally weighted regressions like geographically weighted
regression (GWR) or moving windows regression (MWR) can clearly
reveal the geographic heterogeneity of determinants. However, their
fragmented outputs cannot be straightforwardly interpreted to illumi-
nate housing segmentation and urban structure (Páez et al., 2001; Páez
et al., 2008). The usage of regressions such as hierarchical linear
modeling, which directly relates spatial heterogeneity to urban struc-
ture under an integral framework, should be encouraged (Tian et al.,
2017).
Third, studies considering urban amenities are confined to the lo-
cational attributes of facilities, and thus residents' attitudes to service
amenities have rarely been quantified. The significance of urban ame-
nities is obviously embedded in the local social and cultural context,
and the missing of the direct inputs on the preference of urban residents
will naturally lead to a biased result (Glaeser et al., 2015). Therefore, in
this study, by integrating multiple open data sources and combining
spatial econometrics and social media technology, we examine de-
terminants of housing prices under a comprehensive framework and
explore how these relationships change across urban concentric rings in
a monocentric city.
3. Data and methodology
3.1. Study area
This study selects the full municipality of Shanghai as the study
area, with particular emphasis on pre-owned apartments. There are
several reasons for this choice. First, as the largest city in China,
Shanghai's housing market is the flagship and barometer of China's real
estate market. In 2016, Shanghai attracted more than 190 billion (RMB)
in residential investment (SSB, 2017). Second, the pre-owned apart-
ments make up a major share of Shanghai's housing market. In 2016,
the average unit transaction price of pre-owned homes was
30,180 yuan/m2, and the total registered transaction areas of pre-
H. Li et al.
Fig. 1. Study area.
owned apartments were more than 3,400,000 m2, which accounted for
more than 60% of total transaction area (CREI, 2017; SRETC, 2017).
Third, unlike the newly developed housing projects (first-hand), the
transactions of pre-owned apartments are more likely to be market-
oriented activities less impacted by governmental regulations, which
not only provides a better baseline to compare with western housing
theories, but also is more suitable for the application of hedonic model
(Shi & Li, 2006; Yuan, Wu, Wei, & Wang, 2018). Thus, the pre-owned
apartments in Shanghai are methodologically an appropriate focus for
an examination of the determinants of housing prices in a global city in
a transitional economy (Wei, Bi, Wang, & Ning, 2016).
As we mentioned in the literature review, Shanghai has been widely
identified as a city with a monocentric structure (Li et al., 2014). In
168
Cities 91 (2019) 165–179
recent years, the location of the ring roads has provided a new way of
discussing the spatial organization of Shanghai (Han & Qin, 2009; Li
et al., 2010). We divided Shanghai into three concentric rings based on
the inner and outer ring roads – namely the inner-city area, the ex-
panded inner-city area, and suburbs (Chen & Hao, 2008; Jim & Chen,
2007). The inner-city area is popularly known as the traditional urban
core of Shanghai (Fig. 1).
3.2. Data collection and processing
Three data sources of housing prices have been employed in urban
studies – the transaction data provided by local governments, assessed
house values offered by tax assessor's offices, and the open data drawn
H. Li et al.
from websites of real estate brokerages. The official transaction data are
limited by changes in administrative boundaries and largely relied on
the researchers' relationship with local governments (Raymond, Wang,
& Immergluck, 2016). The tax assessor data provide complete in-
formation at the household-level, but their values are underestimated
by the hedonic pricing model since the long-term residents receive
lower assessed values due to presumed delay in their remodeling and
update (Jarosz, 2008). Recently, exploration of open data sources from
websites of real estate brokerages such as Lianjia.com and Zillow.com
offers better access to more precise property prices at the household-
level (Tan & Cheong, 2016).
In this study, based on the web-crawling Python program, we col-
lected list sale prices and structural characteristics of properties through
October 2016 from Lianjia.com, the largest real estate brokerage firm in
China. The original records were data-washed by removing errors and
redundancy, then geocoded by physical addresses in Baidu Map API. To
ensure the consistency of house tenancy and structure, properties that
are not commodity apartments, such as subsidized housing from work
units, were also removed. In the end, our housing dataset includes
47,790 pre-owned apartments for sale, which approximately represents
a full picture of the residential market in Shanghai (Fig. 1).
The list prices from Lianjia.com were used because of its relatively
better reliability and spatial coverage. First, Lianjia.com is not only a
platform that posts housing information, but also a real estate company.
For each apartment, Lianjia.com uses a restricted process of price es-
timation based on a comparison with their transaction data. Thus, the
list prices are not only determined by sellers' self-evaluation and ex-
pectations, but also cross-validated by Lianjia.com's transaction data-
base to ensure the success rate of the final transaction.
Second, compared to the posted transaction data from Lianjia.com,
Lianjia.com's list prices have less temporal volatility. Due to the eco-
nomic cycles and government regulations, the Chinese housing market
has been characterized by strong fluctuations. Transactions from dif-
ferent times may not be comparable. In this study, only the list prices
from Lianjia.com in October 2016 were collected, which ensures the
temporal stability needed to reveal the underlying spatial dynamics. To
further validate the quality of list prices, we also cross-checked the
transaction prices and the list prices for apartments in the same com-
munity and similar time period, and the results show that the deviation
is smaller than 2000 yuan at the level of unit price.
Last, Lianjia.com is the largest real estate agent in China, holding
more than 50% market share in Shanghai and Beijing. Compared to
other online agents, it provides relatively complete information (Wu,
Song, et al., 2017; Wu, Ye, et al., 2017). Moreover, different companies
have varying transaction and charge policies, which leads to the same
apartment listed with different prices. Thus, to keep the housing market
data consistent across space, we solely employed the dataset from
Lianjia.com. Overall, list prices might be overestimated, but given the
comparability, consistency, and coverage, list prices still properly re-
flect the distribution of housing prices in Shanghai.
We constructed the database of independent variables from several
sources. The data on public transport facilities and service amenities are
composed of three parts. First, location sites of bus stops, metro sta-
tions, banks, hospitals, and city/community parks were collected based
on the points of interest (POI) service of Baidu Map (map.baidu.com)
and complemented by digitizing satellite maps of Google Earth.
Second, popularities of private amenities such as entertainment,
shopping, and residential service facilities were gathered from
Dianping.com. On the website of Dianping.com, information about the
consumers' social group, preferences, and shops' attractiveness are
comprehensively integrated so that they may be compared using such
indices as average cost, average rating, and comments. This dataset
properly represents the characteristics of China's private service ame-
nities and provides information on classification and consumers' feed-
back. Its reliability has also been tested and examined by recent studies
(Zhai et al., 2015).
169
Cities 91 (2019) 165–179
Last, availability of bike sharing was ascertained and processed
based on the open data of Mobike.com for five official work days, from
September 4 to September 8, 2017. The sharing bike system has become
a complementary part of the public transport system, fixing “the last
mile problem” (Liu, Jia, & Cheng, 2012). The travel based on sharing
bike system consists of local trips over short distances (Yang & Long,
2016). Moreover, the sharing bike dataset uses the available bike lo-
cation for each hour in Shanghai. We have also compared the spatial
pattern of bikes in a time series and found that the distribution is stable
at the same time on different days. Thus, the distribution of available
bikes properly reflects a significant aspect of public transportation ac-
cessibility.
3.3. Hedonic model and regressions
Based on the hedonic hypothesis that goods are valued for their
utility-bearing attributes or characteristics, we specified that our re-
sidential market was determined by a suite of choices made by con-
sumers and producers under market conditions (Li et al., 2016). In
general, an orthodox hedonic model at market equilibrium is composed
of three attributes: structural, locational, and spatial correlation attri-
butes. Structural attributes include the lot size, house area, and im-
provements. Locational attributes contain all externalities associated
with the geographic location, such as accessibility, proximity ex-
ternalities, amenities, environmental conditions, air pollution, and
land-use information (Kim, Phipps, & Anselin, 2003; Li et al., 2016).
The spatial correlation attribute includes the influence of spatial auto-
correlation, which reflects the fact that similar prices, structural char-
acteristics, and locational amenities appear for houses within close
proximity of each other. In China, because of zoning regulations and the
presence of gated communities, homes in the same neighborhood and
community tend to have similar structural characteristics and to share
the same local amenities (Li et al., 2016; Wen & Tao, 2015; Wu et al.,
2014). In our study, to specify effects from accessibility and service
amenities, the hedonic model could be formally expressed as (Eq. (1)):
P (HM ) = F (SA, AS, PUSA, PRSA, G ) + ε (1)
where: P(HM) is a matrix containing housing prices, F(SA, AS, PU-
SA, PRSA, G) is a functional form with structural (SA), accessibility
(AS), public service amenities (PUSA), private service amenities
(PRSA), spatial correlation (G) attributes, and ε is the residual term.
Researchers have used various functional forms to estimate the
hedonic-price function including linear, quadratic, double-log, semi-
log, and Box-Cox transformations (Cropper, Deck, & McConnell, 1988).
In this study, since we directly employed the unit sale price, measured
by yuan/m2, as the independent variable, which fits the normal dis-
tribution, linear function form was used. We first employed ordinary
least squares (OLS) to provide the baseline information of underlying
determinants of the housing market in Shanghai. The OLS equation is as
follow:
Y = C + βX + u (2)
where: Y is the unit sale price for an apartment, C is the constant, X are
independent variables and β are the coefficients of X, u is the error term.
To test the statistical existence of spatial effects, we carried out the
Moran's I test and its value for unit sale prices in Shanghai is 0.195,
providing strong evidence for the existence of spatial autocorrelation
and suggesting the necessity of applying spatial econometrics to miti-
gate the problem in estimating the spatial model (Tian et al., 2017). The
result of Lagrange-multiplier (LM) test reveals that there is significant
spatial autocorrelation in residuals, and the evidence for significant
autocorrelation is shown in the “RLMlag” test, suggesting the need for a
spatial lag model (SLR). The spatially lagged model can be expressed as
(Eq. (3)):
Y = ρWy + Xβ + ϵ ϵ~N (0, σ 2I ) (3)
H. Li et al.
In this equation, Y is the unit housing price, X represents the ex-
planatory variables, such as structural attributes, accessibility and ser-
vice amenities, β represents parameters of explanatory variables. Wy is
the spatial lag operator, a weighted average of random variables at
neighboring locations. W is a spatial weights matrix of apartments, y is
a vector of observations on the random variable, ϵ is the zero-mean
error term with common variance σ2, and ρ is the autoregressive and
moving average parameter.
Previous studies usually used locally weighted regressions such as
GWR and MWR to control spatial heterogeneity, which has been widely
criticized due to fragmented and incommensurable outcomes (Páez
et al., 2008). In this study, to achieve an integrated regression result
under a monocentric framework, we used concentric rings to simulate
housing segmentation (Jim & Chen, 2007). Therefore, the random in-
tercept multi-level regression (MLR) was employed to investigate dif-
ferences between concentric rings as regards effects of accessibility and
service amenities on housing prices in Shanghai (Gelman & Hill, 2007)
(Eq. (4)).
yij = β0 + β1 x ij + μoj + ϑoj
In the equation:
yij refers to the unit sale price for apartment i that belongs to the ring
j.
xij is the independent variable for apartment i that belongs to the
ring j.
μoj is the error term in the ring j.
ϑoij is the error term of apartment i that belongs to the ring j.
Moreover, to explicitly recognize the heterogeneity of determinants
across rings, we utilized the spatial regime model, which can derive
parameters that are specific to rings in particular groups. This model
has been widely used in regional, urban and geographical studies (Li,
Wei, Liao, & Huang, 2015). We allowed coefficients to vary across
different rings (Eq. (5)):
∗ ⎡ bA ⎤
⎡ gri, tA ⎤ ⎡ Yi∗, t − 1A Xi∗, t − 1A 0 0 ⎤ ⎢ φA ⎥ vi, tA
⎢ gr ∗ ⎥ = ⎢ 0 +⎡
0 Yi∗, t − 1B Xi∗, t − 1B ⎥ ⎢ bB ⎥ ⎣ vi, tB ⎦
⎣ i, tB ⎦ ⎣ ⎦⎢ ⎥
⎣ B⎥
⎢ φ
⎦ (5)
where the subscripts A and B indicate different rings; gri, tA∗
and gri, tB∗
are N × 1 column vectors with observations for rings A and B, re-
spectively; Yi, t−1A∗, Yi, t−1B∗ are N × 2 matrices including the constant
term and initial prices of each regime; Xi, t−1A∗, Xi, t−1B∗ are the N × K
matrices of observations on other explanatory variables for each re-
gime; vi, tA, vi, tB are the N × 1 vectors of error terms.
3.4. Variables
Definitions and descriptions of 17 explanatory variables included in
this study are given in Table 1. In this hedonic model we adopted four
categories of independent variables: structural attributes, accessibility,
public service amenities, and private service amenities.
Floor area, number of bedrooms, number of living rooms, floor
level, decoration status, house age, and whether or not the unit is south-
facing were used to capture the structural attributes of the apartment.
In contrast to the West, south-facing is one of the most imperative
qualifications, because the orientation of houses and apartments are
closely associated with sunshine time and the tradition of Fengshui
(Wang & Li, 2006).
Three explanatory variables were included to represent the acces-
sibility attributes of the apartment. Numbers of metro stations and bus
stops within a half mile of the apartment were used to represent public
transport accessibility. We expected a positive relationship between
housing prices and accessibility factors. We also innovatively added the
Cities 91 (2019) 165–179
number of available sharing bikes within 300 m of the apartment into
the model. With the development of the sharing economy, scholars
have found that sharing bikes have expanded the influence of subways
on the residential market. An increasing number of residents use
sharing bikes to commute between metro stations and home (El-
Geneidy, Lierop, & Wasfi, 2016).
In addition to structural attributes and accessibility factors, we also
included two kinds of service amenities in the analysis: public service
amenities and private service amenities. The distance to the nearest
urban park, numbers of public schools, banks, and hospitals within
0.5 miles of the apartment were used as proxies for public service
amenities (Li et al., 2016; Wen et al., 2014; Wen & Tao, 2015). Al-
though there have been more and more private schools and banks ap-
pearing in Shanghai, public schools and banks are the dominant forces
providing educational and financial services for most China's urban
residents. Thus, in this study, private banks and schools were excluded
from the variable of education and financial facilities.
Our private amenity variables were the degrees of popularity of
entertainment, shopping, and residential service facilities within
(4) 0.5 miles of the apartment. Levels of popularity were calculated based
on the summary of comments in Dianping.com. Categories of en-
tertainment, shopping, and residential services were divided and ex-
tracted based on the label information on Dianping.com. Entertainment
facilities include karaoke televisions, theatres, cinemas, clubs, etc.
Shopping facilities refer to shopping malls, supermarkets, and con-
venience stores, while residential services consist of housekeeping,
moving, community and logistics services, etc. As in most existing
studies, all distance and buffer-related variables were calculated based
on the Euclidean distance in ArcGIS (Li et al., 2016; Sander, Ghosh,
Riper, & Manson, 2010).
4. Housing prices distribution in Shanghai
The housing market in Shanghai differs across space and by scale
and is highly associated with distance to CBD. Fig. 2 demonstrates the
distribution of apartment prices at the household and subdistrict levels.
Generally, the housing prices decay with increase of the distance to
CBD. This result appears consistent with the bid-rent model and the
⎤
monocentric structure of Shanghai. At the household level, the apart-
ments with a unit price higher than 100,000 yuan/m2 are concentrated
in the inner-city area of Shanghai. Huangpu, Jing'an, and Xuhui are the
subdistricts with an average housing sale price higher than
90,000 yuan/m2.
Spatial analyses such as hotspot analysis of the Getis-Ord Gi⁎ sta-
tistic and the three-dimensional surface of inverse distance weighted
(IDW) interpolation were used to provide a better visualization (Fig. 3).
The Getis-Ord Gi⁎ statistic reflects whether the facilities with high po-
pularity tend to cluster. If a property's price is high and prices of its
neighboring properties are also high, it is part of a hotspot. The IDW is a
type of deterministic method for multivariate interpolation with a
known scattered set of points. Hotspots of housing prices were clustered
in the inner-city and expanded inner-city areas of Shanghai.
Regarding the urban spatial structure, we calculated the spatial
influence radius of the urban center by plotting housing prices against
the distance to CBD. To test the existence of directional differences, we
plotted the gradients in four directions of south, north, east, and west in
Fig. 4, respectively. In general, a significant declining CBD-related
gradient could be observed. As the distance to CBD increases, housing
prices decrease steadily. It is interesting that the declining trend can be
observed in all directions, although there were some differences in
areas close to the CBD. As the distance increased to 30–39 km, housing
prices became stable in the range of 30,000–40,000 yuan/m2. Fig. 4
confirms that the housing market in Shanghai has a typical monocentric
structure in all directions (Chen & Hao, 2008; Shi & Li, 2006). Due to
the highly differentiated distribution regarding the distance to CBD,
distinguishable determinants of housing prices across concentric rings
170
H. Li et al. Cities 91 (2019) 165–179

Table 1
Independent variables.
Explanatory variables Definition Abbrev. Type

2
Structural attributes (SA) Floor area (m ) FA Continuous
Number of bedrooms NBe Continuous
Number of living rooms NL Continuous
Floor level FL Continuous
South-facing SF Dummy
Decoration DEC Dummy
House age HA Continuous
Accessibility (AS) Number of metro stations within 0.5 miles NMS Continuous
Number of bus stops within 0.5 miles NBS Continuous
Number of available sharing bikes within 300 m NSB Continuous
Public service amenities (PUSA) Distance to park [log(m)] DP Continuous
Number of public schools within 0.5 miles NPS Continuous
Number of public banks within 0.5 miles NPB Continuous
Number of hospitals within 0.5 miles HF Continuous
Private service amenities (PRSA) Popularity of entertainment facilities within 0.5 miles PEF Continuous
Popularity of shopping facilities within 0.5 miles PSF Continuous
Popularity of domestic service facilities within 0.5 miles PDS Continuous

Note:

1. Log is the natural logarithm.

2. Prices and structural attributes datasets are collected from Lianjia.com.
3. Sharing bikes data are gathered and processed based on the open data of Mobike.com on September 8, 2017.
4. Schools, banks, and hospitals are gathered from the POI data of Baidu Map.
5. Popularities are calculated based on the summary of comments in Dianping.com.

could be expected to appear.
We also calculated numbers and structural characteristics of apart-
ments for sale in the different concentric rings in Shanghai (Table 2).
Apartments are evenly distributed across urban concentric rings, al-
though the expanded inner-city area has the most apartments for sale,
which is typical of residential suburbanization in China (Liu et al.,
2015; Wang & Chai, 2009). The apartments in the suburbs have the
lowest unit price, larger floor area, more bedrooms and living rooms.
These results suggest that apartments have distinguishable structures
across the concentric rings, which further confirms that using con-
centric rings to divide submarkets is an appropriate manner to depict
the spatial heterogeneity of Shanghai's housing market.
Table 3 shows the overall and spatially disaggregated Gini and
coefficient of variation (CV) of housing prices in Shanghai across con-
centric rings for the entire city. Both of them are popular measures of
statistical dispersion. The CV is defined as the ratio of the standard

Fig. 2. Housing prices distribution in Shanghai (a: apartment-level; b: subdistrict-level).

Source: Lianjia.com.

171
H. Li et al. Cities 91 (2019) 165–179

Fig. 3. Hotspot analysis (a) and 3D surface interpolation (b) of apartment prices in Shanghai.
Source: Lianjia.com and authors' calculation.

deviation to the mean, while the Gini coefficient is based on the Lorenz
curve, graphically representing the cumulative distribution function of
a probability distribution. In this study, values of the Gini coefficient of
CV are relatively smaller than expected, which means that the most
significant issue of the real estate market in China is the poor afford-
ability, rather than intra-urban inequality or residential segregation.
Second, the Gini and CV for the entire city are much larger than the
coefficients for each ring. The inequality of housing prices in Shanghai
is largely attributed to the price differences among rings, rather than
the uneven distribution at the intra-ring level. Third, for all rings, re-
sults of spatially disaggregated Gini suggest that most of the inequality
is not due to the spatial autocorrelation and inequality within neigh-
borhoods. This result implies that determinants of housing price var-
iation at the intra-ring level are largely due to local attributes. In short,
the residential market in Shanghai has a monocentric structure, and the
distance to CBD largely determines housing prices. Inequality indices
further suggest that transportation facilities and service amenities are
additional determinants of housing prices in Shanghai, which are dis-
cussed in the next section.
5. Accessibility, service amenities and housing prices
Section 4 argues that the residential market in Shanghai varies
spatially depending on to locations and local attributes, and thus we
further investigated the distributions of accessibility and service ame-
nities and their effects on nearby housing prices. We further aggregated
the numbers of metro stations, bus stops, and available sharing bikes
into subdistrict-levels (Fig. 5). The expanded inner-city area had the

Whole City South West East North

110,000
100,000
90,000
Unit Price (Yuan/Sq.Meter)

80,000
70,000
60,000
50,000
40,000
30,000
20,000
10,000
3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24 27 30 33 36 39 42
Distance to CBD (km)

Fig. 4. Housing prices with distance to CBD in Shanghai.

Source: Lianjia.com and authors' calculation.

172
H. Li et al. Cities 91 (2019) 165–179

Table 2 popularity of private service amenities (Fig. 9). Entertainment, shop-

Statistics of apartment attributes across concentric rings. ping, and residential service facilities tend to have a similar distribution
Source: Lianjia.com. in the subdistrict-level. Compared to public service amenities, private
Statistics Apartments for sale service amenities are relatively decentralized. This difference suggests
that public and private service amenities might play divergent roles in
Inner city Expanded inner city Suburban area determining the geography of the housing market in Shanghai.
To summarize, public transport facilities greatly heighten the prices
Count 10,752 20,801 16,237
Unit price (yuan/m2) 84,333 63,520 40,038 on the residential market in Shanghai, but this effect varies spatially
FA (m2) 88.28 79.29 107.57 depending on mode of transportation. Both public and private service
NBe 2.07 2.03 2.51 amenities have distribution patterns similar to the residential market in
NL 1.29 1.27 1.68
Shanghai, and all of these relationships change across concentric rings.
FL 16.12 9.24 9.13
SF (dummy) 0.46 0.50 0.40

Note: The unit price, floor area, numbers of bedrooms, numbers of living rooms 6. Global picture of determinants: findings from OLS, SLR and
floor level, and south-facing orientation are calculated as mean value. MLR

highest number of metro stations and bus stops, while subdistricts lo-
cated in the suburban area and close to the outer ring road had the most
available sharing bikes. Moreover, bus stops and sharing bikes were
distributed more intensively in the southeastern and northwestern re-
gions than in the municipality's southwestern regions. One can see that
public transport facilities have distributions similar to housing prices
(Figs. 2 and 5), which is consistent with the previous literature insofar
as public transport facilities have profoundly raised homes' value (Tian
et al., 2017).
To further explore how different modes of transport influence the
residential market across Shanghai's concentric rings, we calculated
unit prices by defining accessibility conditions in Table 4 and projected
housing prices against distances to the nearest metro station, bus sta-
tion, and available sharing bike in Figs. 6 and 7. Apartments with less
accessibility to metro stations, bus stops, and sharing bikes tend to have
lower prices. This tendency also changes across concentric rings and
transport modes. First, unit prices for apartments with metro stations in
the 0.5-mile buffer were significantly higher than the apartments far-
ther away from metro stations, and this relationship was more sig-
nificant for apartments located in the suburbs. Second, bus stops had a
relatively slight influence on sale prices, while sharing bikes sub-
stantially increased prices for apartments in the expanded inner-city
area and the suburban area of Shanghai, which implied that sharing
bikes has become an extremely important commuting mode for local
residents (El-Geneidy et al., 2016). Third, effective radii are different.
The effective radius of metro stations on housing prices was approxi-
mately 3000 m, while those of sharing bikes and bus stops were limited
to 700 m.
Regarding the general distribution of public service amenities,
kernel density estimations of public schools, banks, and hospitals in
Shanghai are projected in Fig. 8. In comparison to the normal density
map, kernel density estimation is useful for visualizing the intensity of
events by generating a smoothed estimation surface. On the whole,
public schools, banks, and hospitals in Shanghai are largely con-
centrated in the inner-city and expanded inner-city areas, with several
scattered and small subcenters in the suburbs, such as Huinan and
Gaoqiao in Pudong, Nanqiao in Fengxian, and Fangsong in Songjiang.
These centralized patterns suggest a positive relationship between
public service amenities and the residential market.
The housing market in Shanghai is also associated with the
Our analysis confirms spatial associations among monocentric
structure, accessibility, service amenities and the housing market in
Shanghai. We further employed OLS, SLR, and MLR to test the under-
lying relationships between apartment prices and their determinants in
a multivariate environment. To avoid the multicollinearity problem
among regression analyses, we also tested the variance inflation factor
(VIF) of all explanatory variables and found that results were smaller
than 4.5, which indicated that no pair of variables has a significant
linear correlation. Regarding spatial autocorrelation, the significance of
spatial weight (Rho) in the SLR, as well as decreased values of global
Moran's I of residuals from OLS to MLR and SLR prove that spatial ef-
fects have been properly controlled in the SLR (Table 5).
Table 5 shows a summary of parameters of independent variables
for the entire municipality. To compare effect sizes of different in-
dependent variables on housing prices, the elasticity of housing prices
with respect to continuous variables is also reported in Table 5. Elas-
ticity is the ratio of the percentage change in one variable associated
with the percentage change in another variable. For outcomes mea-
sured as continuous variables, as is the case here, elasticity can be in-
terpreted as the percent change in housing prices when a specified in-
dependent variable increases by 1% (Kim et al., 2003; Tian et al.,
2017).
First, structural attributes, floor area, house age, south-facing or-
ientation, and decoration status are significantly and positively asso-
ciated with unit sale prices in all three models. Potential buyers will pay
more for larger and newer apartments. Every 1% increase in floor area
will lead to 0.05–0.08% increase in housing prices. Interestingly, con-
sistent with previous studies both in Guangzhou and cities in the United
States, the number of bedrooms is not significantly positive, likely in-
dicating that, given the similar square footage, buyers do not want extra
bedrooms (Jim & Chen, 2007; Li et al., 2016).
Second, consistent with findings in Beijing and Wuhan (Jiao & Liu,
2010; Xiao et al., 2017), buyers are willing to pay for access to public
transport facilities, especially metro stations. Proximity to metro sta-
tions has been widely identified as one of the most important indicators
that will significantly raise property values in global cities (Agostini &
Palmucci, 2008). Residents in Shanghai prefer to live in the estates that
are convenient for accessing public transport and other service ame-
nities. In our result, every 1% increase in numbers of nearby metro
stations is associated with an approximate 0.03–0.04% increase in

Table 3
CV and spatially aggregated Gini coefficients across concentric rings.
Source: Lianjia.com.
Rings Overall CV Overall Gini Neighbors Gini Non-neighbors Gini Neighbors contribution Non-neighbors contribution

Inner-city area 0.2193 0.1165 0.0093 0.1072 7.9% 92.1%

Expanded inner-city area 0.1974 0.1037 0.0039 0.0998 3.8% 96.2%
Suburban area 0.2638 0.1431 0.0059 0.1372 4.1% 95.9%
Entire city 0.3551 0.1960

173
H. Li et al. Cities 91 (2019) 165–179

Fig. 5. Accessibility facilities at subdistrict-level in Shanghai (a: metro stations; b: bus stops; c: sharing bikes).
Source: Mobike.com and Baidu Map POI.

Table 4 improving residents' living environment and quality of life. For in-
Average unit price and accessibility. stance, in terms of public service amenities, variables of schools, banks,
Source: Lianjia.com. and hospitals have a significantly positive influence on sale prices in all
Unit price (yuan/m2) Apartments for sale three models. Apartments with better access to schools, and hospitals
will apparently attract more buyers. Every 1% increase in numbers of
Inner city Expanded inner city Suburbs nearby banks and hospitals will lead to a 0.02% increase in unit housing
prices, at least. Consistent with previous studies in Nanjing (Wu et al.,
With metro stations
Total 84,703 65,199 44,751 2014), Hangzhou (Wen et al., 2014) and the United States (Kane et al.,
With bus 84,703 65,198 44,865 2006; Li et al., 2016), schools, and their perceived quality, have a siz-
Without bus NA 63,520 42,516 able and positive effect on urban home values. The price elasticity of
With bikes 84,703 65,220 44,873 schools in the SLR is 0.097, much higher than banks and hospitals. In
Without bikes NA 52,143 41,370
terms of urban parks, Shanghai shows a pattern similar to most Chinese
Without metro stations cities, such as Guangzhou and Shenzhen (Chen & Li, 2017; Wu, Song,
Total 79,447 61,028 38,585
et al., 2017; Wu, Ye, et al., 2017), and compact cities in United States
With bus 79,447 61,012 38,749
Without bus NA 63,986 37,747 such as Portland (Netusil, 2013). Our results suggest that accessibility
With bikes 79,447 61,053 39,073 to public parks have positive effects on housing prices in Shanghai.
Without bikes NA 57,525 32,677 Private services were rarely included in previous housing studies of
Chinese cities, because they are difficult to quantify and capture,
Note: The buffer for metro stations and bus stops is 0.5 miles, and the buffer for
especially in terms of residents' perception. Wen, Jia, and Guo (2005)
sharing bikes is 300 m.
incorporated entertainment facilities in the hedonic model and found it
only had a marginally significant and positive effect on housing prices
housing prices. Given that the average value of metro station variables
in Hangzhou. In this study, we find that variables of shopping, en-
is as small as 0.749, one newly developed metro station will dramati-
tertainment, and residential services are all significantly positive in the
cally increase a nearby property's price.
model of MLR, which has controlled the spatial heterogeneity among
Third, service amenities significantly affect the property market by

75,000
70,000
Unit Price (Yuan/Sq.Meter)

65,000
60,000
55,000
50,000
45,000
40,000
35,000
30,000
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000 4500
Distance the nearest Metro Station (Meter)

Fig. 6. Housing prices with distance to the nearest metro station in Shanghai.
Source: Lianjia.com and authors' calculation.

174
H. Li et al. Cities 91 (2019) 165–179

70,000
60,000

Unit Price (Yuan/Sq. Meter)

50,000
40,000
30,000
20,000
10,000

0
100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 1100 1200
Distance (Meter)

Bus Stop Sharing Bike

Fig. 7. Housing prices with distances to the nearest bus stop and sharing bike in Shanghai.
Source: Lianjia.com, Mobike.com, Baidu Map, and authors' calculation.

the concentric rings. Every 1% increase in the popularity of nearby
residential services is associated with an approximate 0.02–0.03% in-
crease in unit housing prices. This result is highly consistent with the
survey result from Sun et al. (2010) that unpopular shopping and en-
tertainment services are the key reason to explain the failure of poly-
centric development in Shanghai. The tiny difference with Wen et al.'s
(2005) finding in Hangzhou could be explained by different measure-
ments and local cultures.
7. Comparisons among the concentric rings
Since determinants of the housing market in monocentric cities vary
across concentric rings, we conducted regressions for the inner-city
area, the expanded inner-city area, and the suburban area separately
(Table 6). Overall, the inner-city and expanded inner-city areas have a
relatively higher similarity in results, while the suburban area shows a
completely different suite of results, suggesting that the social and
economic heterogeneity of residents is closely associated with the pat-
tern of concentric rings (Li et al., 2010).
For residents living in the inner-city area, accessibility facilities are
less important in deciding where to live, because transportation facil-
ities are virtually ubiquitous. Second, shopping and residential service
facilities, as well as hospitals, turn out to be significant. Third, nearby
schools have significant impacts on the unit sale price. This finding is
consistent with institutional settings of China's urban education system.
The household registration system determines which school district
division a child may attend; buying an apartment within the school
district is the only way to choose a better public school for children. In
the expanded inner-city area, the variable of metro stations turns out to
be significantly positive, which implies that the subway is the most
popular and important commuting mode for residents living in this
area. Variables of schools, hospitals, banks, shopping, and domestic
facilities also have a significantly positive coefficient. The suburban
area is the only region where all three accessibility variables are sig-
nificantly positive. Given the relatively slow decentralization of public
services in urban China, along with an increasing distance to CBD,
access to public transportation facilities is important for residents to
reach public services. Also, buyers in this region are willing to pay more
for better private service amenities rather than public service amenities,
since high-quality public amenities are still concentrated in the tradi-
tional urban core of Shanghai.
In addition to the independent regressions showing differences in
statistical significances, we also employed spatial regime regression to
produce three sets of comparable coefficients, one for each ring
(Table 7). Regarding structural attributes, apartment size, floor level,
and house age have more influence on apartments in the expanded
inner-city area. Compared with apartments in the expanded inner-city
area and suburbs, structural variables have less influence on the values

Fig. 8. Kernel density estimation of public service amenity facilities in Shanghai (a: schools; b: banks; c: hospitals).
Source: Baidu Map.

175
H. Li et al. Cities 91 (2019) 165–179

Fig. 9. Popularities (sum of comments) of private service amenity facilities at subdistrict-level in Shanghai (a: entertainment; b: shopping; c: domestic service).
Source: Dianping.com.

of apartments in the inner-city, since buyers are more attracted by the
plentitude of public and private service amenities. Speaking of acces-
sibility, metro stations and sharing bikes have additional positive ef-
fects on apartment prices in the suburbs. In terms of service amenities,
public amenities such as parks, schools, banks, and hospitals contribute
more to unit sale prices for apartments in the inner-city area. Since
shopping facilities and residential services are sparser in the expanded
inner-city area and suburbs, buyers are willing to pay more to be closer
to them.
In short, accessibility and service amenities collectively shape the
residential market in Shanghai, and interrelations are influenced by
types of public transport and amenity facilities. Residents from the
inner-city and expanded inner-city areas pay more attention to private
and public service amenities, while people living in the suburban area
have to put a premium on access to public transport facilities. Third,
metro stations and sharing bikes apparently have more significant in-
fluence than bus stops, and residential service facilities are more im-
portant than entertainment venues.

Table 5
Regression results for entire city.
Variables Coefficients Elasticity

OLS SLR MLR OLS SLR MLR

Structural attributes (SA)

FA 39.00⁎⁎⁎ 5.829⁎⁎⁎ 32.00⁎⁎⁎ 0.059 0.079 0.048
NBe −1968⁎⁎⁎ −861.3⁎⁎⁎ −1378⁎⁎⁎ −0.072 −0.281 −0.050
NL 2.855 3.520 294.9 – – –
FL 138.1⁎⁎⁎ −75.90⁎⁎⁎ 79.09⁎⁎⁎ 0.025 −0.121 0.014
SF 570.5⁎⁎⁎ 619.3⁎⁎⁎ 398.6⁎⁎⁎ – – –
DEC 4026⁎⁎⁎ 2172⁎⁎⁎ 3873⁎⁎⁎ – – –
HA −242.2⁎⁎⁎ −163.7⁎⁎⁎ −281.8⁎⁎⁎ −0.076 −0.456 −0.088

Accessibility (AS)
NMS 2712⁎⁎⁎ 301.8⁎⁎⁎ 1384⁎⁎⁎ 0.035 0.034 0.018
NBS 50.52⁎⁎⁎ 7.102⁎⁎ 4.970⁎⁎ 0.043 0.054 0.004
NSB 64.17⁎⁎⁎ 9.714⁎⁎⁎ 21.36⁎⁎⁎ 0.094 0.127 0.031

Public service amenities (PUSA)

DP −1.589⁎⁎⁎ −0.376⁎⁎⁎ −0.830⁎⁎⁎ – – –
NPS 127.5⁎⁎⁎ 39.33⁎⁎⁎ 78.86⁎⁎⁎ 0.035 0.097 0.022
NPB 46.06⁎⁎⁎ 4.564⁎⁎⁎ 24.11⁎⁎⁎ 0.086 0.076 0.045
HF 160.1⁎⁎⁎ 35.07⁎⁎⁎ 136.1⁎⁎⁎ 0.023 0.046 0.020
Private service amenities (PRSA)
PEF 0.264⁎⁎⁎ 0.031 0.190⁎⁎⁎ 0.018 0.018 0.013
PSF −0.119⁎⁎ −0.058 0.130⁎⁎⁎ −0.003 −0.014 0.004
PDS 1.049⁎⁎⁎ 0.137⁎⁎⁎ 0.690⁎⁎⁎ 0.025 0.029 0.017
Assessment
Intercept 42,350⁎⁎⁎ 7947⁎⁎⁎ 54,331⁎⁎⁎
Weight (Rho) NA 0.888⁎⁎⁎ NA
Obs. 47,790 47,790 47,790
AIC 1,043,602 993,430 1,033,380
R2 0.610 NA NA
MIR 0.660⁎⁎⁎ 0.021 0.129⁎⁎

Note:
1. ***, **, * represent the significance level of 1%, 5%, 10%, respectively.
2. MIR: Global Moran's I for residuals.

176
H. Li et al. Cities 91 (2019) 165–179

Table 6
Independent regression results across concentric rings.
Variables Inner-city Expanded inner-city Suburbs

OLS SLR OLS SLR OLS SLR

Structural attributes (SA)

FA 74.59⁎⁎⁎ 11.04⁎⁎⁎ 57.67⁎⁎⁎ 2.712⁎⁎⁎ 18.50⁎⁎⁎ −1.285
NBe −3918⁎⁎⁎ −1826⁎⁎⁎ −1386⁎⁎⁎ −728.5⁎⁎⁎ −365.8⁎⁎⁎ −274.8⁎⁎⁎
NL −586.6⁎ −207.7⁎ −342.9⁎ 33.14⁎ 448.3⁎⁎ −104.0
FL −60.97⁎⁎⁎ −57.88⁎⁎⁎ 230.5⁎⁎⁎ −10.51 −4.775 −77.25⁎⁎⁎
SF 984.9⁎⁎⁎ 1117⁎⁎⁎ 625.4⁎⁎⁎ 378.9⁎⁎⁎ 584.2⁎⁎⁎ 244.9⁎⁎⁎
DEC 5905⁎⁎⁎ 3005⁎⁎⁎ 2876⁎⁎⁎ 1705⁎⁎⁎ 2632⁎⁎⁎ 1343⁎⁎⁎
HA −262.2⁎⁎⁎ −122.6⁎⁎⁎ −305.9⁎⁎⁎ −141.7⁎⁎⁎ −257.9⁎⁎⁎ −101.8⁎⁎⁎

Accessibility (AS)
NMS −489.2⁎⁎⁎ 16.78 1552⁎⁎⁎ 216.1⁎⁎⁎ 2678⁎⁎⁎ 331.6⁎⁎⁎
NBS 76.08⁎⁎⁎ 1.713 −72.63⁎⁎⁎ −15.95⁎⁎⁎ 78.61⁎⁎⁎ 15.22⁎⁎⁎
NSB −13.04⁎⁎⁎ −1.038 14.29⁎⁎⁎ 3.606⁎⁎⁎ 68.19⁎⁎⁎ 8.228⁎⁎⁎

Public service amenities (PUSA)

DP −1.388⁎⁎ −1.150⁎⁎⁎ −0.953⁎⁎⁎ −0.142⁎ −0.894⁎⁎⁎ −0.180⁎⁎⁎
NPS 144.4⁎⁎⁎ 34.86⁎⁎⁎ 256.7⁎⁎⁎ 69.53⁎⁎⁎ −114.2⁎⁎⁎ −15.70
NPB 13.96⁎⁎⁎ −0.355 39.16⁎⁎⁎ 6.138⁎⁎⁎ −2.736 0.720
HF 184.3⁎⁎⁎ 73.05⁎⁎⁎ 85.49⁎⁎⁎ 27.90⁎⁎⁎ −413.5⁎⁎⁎ −64.83⁎⁎⁎

Private service amenities (PRSA)

PEF −0.033 0.005 0.491⁎⁎⁎ 0.101⁎⁎⁎ 0.205 0.160⁎
PSF 0.370⁎⁎⁎ 0.057⁎⁎⁎ −0.609⁎⁎⁎ −0.103⁎⁎⁎ 5.345⁎⁎⁎ 0.700⁎⁎⁎
PDS 0.545⁎⁎⁎ 0.185⁎⁎⁎ 0.646⁎⁎⁎ 0.167⁎⁎⁎ 1.168⁎⁎⁎ 0.213⁎⁎⁎

Assessment
Intercept 72,930⁎⁎⁎ 21,701⁎⁎⁎ 57,090⁎⁎⁎ 14,088⁎⁎⁎ 38,790⁎⁎⁎ 8555⁎⁎⁎
Weight (Rho) NA 0.759⁎⁎⁎ NA 0.801⁎⁎⁎ NA 0.834⁎⁎⁎
Obs. 10,752 10,752 20,801 20,801 16,237 16,237
AIC 238,879 230,690 443,027 424,850 341,492 323,840
R2 0.241 NA 0.339 NA 0.288 NA
MIR 0.622⁎⁎⁎ 0.011 0.633⁎⁎⁎ 0.016 0.710⁎⁎⁎ −0.001

Note:
1. ***, **, * represent the significance level of 1%, 5%, 10%, respectively.
2. MIR: Global Moran's I for residuals.

Table 7 8. Conclusion and discussion

Spatial regime regression results across concentric rings.
Variables Inner-city Expanded inner-city Suburbs
The skyrocketing residential market amid a series of urban housing
reforms and regulations threatens China's sustainable development and
Structural attributes (SA) has become a serious social problem (Hui & Yue, 2006). Traditional
FA 30.99⁎⁎⁎ 49.95⁎⁎⁎ 11.69⁎⁎⁎ theories find that increasing urban population and housing demand, as
NBe 1099⁎⁎⁎ 2242⁎⁎⁎ 2285⁎⁎⁎
well as the limited supply of residential land, are key factors driving
NL 3661⁎⁎⁎ 6880⁎⁎⁎ 6486⁎⁎⁎
FL 170.9⁎⁎⁎ 756.5⁎⁎⁎ 716.34⁎⁎⁎ housing price increases (Wen & Tao, 2015; Xiao et al., 2017). However,
SF 3933⁎⁎⁎ 3891⁎⁎⁎ 2653⁎⁎⁎ the complexity of locational determinants of housing prices implies the
DEC 8324⁎⁎⁎ 4227⁎⁎⁎ 3793⁎⁎⁎ possibility of other narratives – apartments are largely treated as in-
HA −255.1⁎⁎⁎ −557.2⁎⁎⁎ −448.1⁎⁎⁎
vestment tools against the inflation, and their prices greatly exceed the
Accessibility (AS) value of residence (Chow & Niu, 2015; CREI, 2017). Rapidly developing
NMS 1303⁎ 1996⁎⁎⁎ 3975⁎⁎⁎ big data technology and open data sources offer valuable chances to
NBS 216.9⁎⁎ 51.29⁎⁎ 95.837⁎⁎⁎
NSB 51.56⁎ 30.91⁎⁎ 96.592⁎⁎⁎
examine a variety of local determinants of China's housing market. This
study improves the traditional hedonic pricing method and provides a
Public service amenities (PUSA)
holistic approach to analyzing determinants of the residential market
DP −10.08⁎⁎⁎ −4.948⁎⁎⁎ −0.490⁎⁎⁎
NPS 274.3⁎⁎⁎ 267.12⁎⁎⁎ −57.91⁎ by considering urban structure under an integrated and comprehensive
NPB 47.31⁎⁎⁎ 41.20⁎⁎⁎ −1.737 framework, which allows us to quantify effects of structural attributes,
HF 174.6⁎⁎⁎ 52.55⁎ −460.6⁎⁎⁎ accessibility, and service amenities.
Private service amenities (PRSA) Shanghai's housing prices are affected by the city's monocentric
PEF −0.079⁎⁎⁎ 0.367⁎⁎⁎ 0.195 structure and by locational factors such as accessibility and urban
PSF 0.188⁎⁎⁎ −0.616⁎⁎⁎ 4.229⁎⁎⁎ amenities. SLR and MLR models confirm that accessibility and service
PDS 0.783⁎⁎⁎ 0.762⁎⁎⁎ 1.298⁎⁎⁎
amenities collectively shape the residential market in Shanghai. Such
Assessment relationships are differentiated across concentric rings and by types of
Obs. 47,790
public transport and amenity facilities. First, some facilities such as
AIC 1,045,941
R2 0.954 schools, metro stations, and hospitals mean more investment value to
MIR 0.246⁎⁎ buyers. Second, residents living in the inner-city area are willing to pay
more for private and public service amenities, while people living in the
Note: suburban area are inclined to value public transport facilities more
1. ***, **, * represent the significance level of 1%, 5%, 10%, respectively. highly. Third, metro stations and sharing bikes evidently have more
2. MIR: Global Moran's I for residuals.
significant influences than bus stops, and residential service facilities

177
H. Li et al.
are more important than entertainment venues.
In the drive towards a sustainable urban environment and smart
growth, these findings are valuable for improving the housing afford-
ability in China. First, the Chinese government needs to make public
and private services more accessible, not only spatially in urban per-
ipheries and villages, but also institutionally to low-income residents
who can hardly afford apartments. More affordable housing should be
provided, especially in places with good accessibility. Public services
should not be scarce goods, and the restrictions like linking rights to
education with apartment tenure types need to be reformed. Second,
local governments should better understand the fundamental differ-
ences in residence conditions among the urban concentric rings (Li,
2016). Urban planning and landscape design should focus on specific
demands from buyers when improving the quantity and quality of
specific transport and service amenities facilities (Li et al., 2016). Third,
as indicated by human capital and spatial capital theories, high-quality
service amenities will increase housing prices, result in employment
agglomeration of high-level employment opportunities, as well as fa-
cilitate general urban growth (Glaeser et al., 2015). Local governments
and decision makers should pay more attention to localized policies
when promoting accessibility and public service amenities in the sub-
urbs in order to decentralize employment and balance urban develop-
ment in Shanghai. Such an approach could reduce the significant price
premium currently produced by scarcity of schools and metro stations,
and improve housing affordability (Man, 2011).
References
Agostini, C. A., & Palmucci, G. A. (2008). The anticipated capitalisation effect of a new
metro line on housing prices. Fiscal Studies, 29(2), 233–256.
Ahuja, A., Cheung, L., Han, G., Porter, N., & Zhang, W. (2010). Are house prices rising too
fast in China? International Monetary Fund Asia and Pacific Department, IMF working
paper, WP/10/274.
Black, S. E., & Machin, S. (2011). Housing valuations of school performance. Handbook of
the economics of education. 3. Handbook of the economics of education (pp. 485–519).
Cai, J., Huang, B., & Song, Y. (2017). Using multi-source geospatial big data to identify
the structure of polycentric cities. Remote Sensing of Environment, 202, 210–221.
Chen, J., Guo, F., & Wu, Y. (2011). One decade of urban housing reform in China: Urban
housing price dynamics and the role of migration and urbanization, 1995–2005.
Habitat International, 35, 1–8.
Chen, J., & Hao, Q. J. (2008). The impacts of distance to CBD on housing prices in
Shanghai: A hedonic analysis. Journal of Chinese Economics and Business Studies, 6(3),
291–302.
Chen, W. Y., & Li, X. (2017). Cumulative impacts of polluted urban streams on property
values: A 3-D spatial hedonic model at the micro-neighborhood level. Landscape and
Urban Planning, 162, 1–12.
Chow, G. C., & Niu, L. (2015). Housing prices in urban China as determined by demand
and supply. Pacific Economic Review, 20(1), 1–16.
Concas, S. (2013). Accessibility and housing price resilience: Evidence from limited-ac-
cess roadways in Florida. Transportation Research Record, 2357, 66–76.
CREI (2017). China real estate information. Retrieved from http://www.crei.cn/.
Crompton, J. L. (2001). The impacts of parks on property values: A review of the em-
pirical evidence. Journal of Leisure Research, 33(1), 1–31.
Cropper, M. L., Deck, L. B., & McConnell, K. (1988). On the choice of functional form for
hedonic price functions. The Review of Economics and Statistics, 70(4), 668–675.
CSSB (China State Statistical Bureau). China statistical yearbook for regional economy.
Beijing: China Statistical Press, (various years).
El-Geneidy, A., Lierop, D., & Wasfi, R. (2016). Do people value bicycle sharing? A mul-
tilevel longitudinal analysis capturing the impact of bicycle sharing on residential
sales in Montreal, Canada. Transport Policy, 51, 174–181.
Feng, J., Zhou, Y., & Wu, F. (2008). New trends of suburbanization in Beijing since 1990:
From government-led to market-oriented. Regional Studies, 42(1), 83–99.
Gelman, A., & Hill, J. (2007). Data analysis using regression and multilevel/hierarchical
models. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Glaeser, E. L., Kominers, S. D., Luca, M., & Naik, N. (2015). Big data and big cities: The
promises and limitations of improved measures for urban life. Harvard Kennedy
School faculty research working paper, RWP15-075.
Haila, A. (2000). Real estate in global cities: Singapore and Hong Kong as property states.
Urban Studies, 37(12), 2241–2256.
Han, S. S., & Qin, B. (2009). The spatial distribution of producer services in Shanghai.
Urban Studies, 46(4), 877–896.
Hao, Q. J., & Chen, J. (2007). Geospatial differences of distance to CBD, transport accessi-
bility and Shanghai housing prices. vol. 1, World Economic Forum22–35.
He, S. (2007). State-sponsored gentrification under market transition: The case of
Shanghai. Urban Affairs Review, 43(2), 171–198.
He, S. (2012). Two waves of gentrification and emerging rights issues in Guangzhou,
China. Environment & Planning A, 44, 2817–2833.
178
Cities 91 (2019) 165–179
He, S., & Wu, F. (2009). China's emerging neoliberal urbanism: Perspective from urban
redevelopment. Antipode, 41(2), 282–304.
Hui, E. C. M., Chau, C. K., Pun, L., & Law, M. Y. (2007). Measuring the neighboring and
environmental effects on residential property value: Using spatial weighting matrix.
Building and Environment, 42, 2333–2343.
Hui, E. C. M., & Yue, S. (2006). Housing price bubbles in Hong Kong, Beijing and
Shanghai: A comparative study. Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, 33,
299–327.
Jarosz, B. (2008). Using assessor parcel data to maintain housing unit counts for small
area population estimates. Applied demography in the 21st century (pp. 89–101). .
Jiao, L., & Liu, Y. (2010). Geographic Field Model based hedonic valuation of urban open
spaces in Wuhan, China. Landscape and Urban Planning, 98, 47–55.
Jim, C. Y., & Chen, W. Y. (2007). Consumption preferences and environmental ex-
ternalities: A hedonic analysis of the housing market in Guangzhou. Geoforum, 38(2),
414–431.
Kane, T. J., Riegg, S. K., & Staiger, D. O. (2006). School quality, neighborhoods, and
housing prices. American Law and Economics Review, 8(2), 183–212.
Kim, C. W., Phipps, T. T., & Anselin, L. (2003). Measuring the benefits of air quality
improvement: A spatial hedonic approach. Journal of Environmental Economics and
Management, 45, 24–39.
Li, H. (2016). Institutions, economic transition and urban land expansion in China. University
of Utah (Dissertation).
Li, H., Wei, Y. H. D., & Huang, Z. (2014). Urban land expansion and spatial dynamics in
globalizing Shanghai. Sustainability, 6(12), 8856–8875.
Li, H., Wei, Y. H. D., Liao, F. H. F., & Huang, Z. (2015). Administrative hierarchy and
urban land expansion in transitional China. Applied Geography, 56, 177–186.
Li, H., Wei, Y. H. D., Yu, Z., & Tian, G. (2016). Amenity, accessibility and housing values
in metropolitan USA: A study of Salt Lake County, Utah. Cities, 59, 113–125.
Li, S., Hou, Q., Chen, S., & Zhou, C. (2010). Work, home, and market: The social trans-
formation of housing space in Guangzhou, China. Urban Geography, 31(4), 434–452.
Liu, X., & Wang, M. (2016). How polycentric is urban China and why? A case study of 318
cities. Landscape and Urban Planning, 151, 10–20.
Liu, Y., Yue, W., Fan, P., & Song, Y. (2015). Suburban residential development in the era
of market-oriented land reform: The case of Hangzhou, China. Land Use Policy, 42,
233–243.
Liu, Z., Jia, X., & Cheng, W. (2012). Solving the last mile problem: Ensure the success of
public bicycle system in Beijing. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 43, 73–78.
Ma, S. X., & Li, A. (2003). Housing price influencing factors in Beijing based on hedonic
models. Journal of Civil Engineering, 36(9), 59–64.
Man, J. Y. (2011). Affordable housing in China. Land Lines, 16–20 (January).
Mihaescu, O., & Hofe, R. (2012). The impact of brownfields on residential property values
in Cincinnati, Ohio: A spatial hedonic approach. Journal of Regional Analysis & Policy,
42(3), 223–236.
Murakami, J., & Chang, Z. (2018). Polycentric development under public leasehold: A
spatial analysis of commercial land use rights. Regional Science and Urban Economics,
71, 25–36.
Netusil, N. R. (2013). Urban environmental amenities and property values: Does own-
ership matter? Land Use Policy, 31, 371–377.
Niu, X., Liang, D., & Song, X. (2015). Understanding urban spatial structure of Shanghai
central city based on mobile phone data. China City Planning Review, 24(3), 15–23.
Páez, A., Long, F., & Farber, S. (2008). Moving window approaches for hedonic price
estimation: an empirical comparison of modelling techniques. Urban Studies, 45(8),
1565–1581.
Páez, A., Uchida, T., & Miyamoto, K. (2001). Spatial association and heterogeneity issues
in land price models. Urban Studies, 38(9), 1493–1508.
Qin, B., & Han, S. S. (2013). Emerging polycentricity in Beijing: Evidence from housing
price variations, 2001–05. Urban Studies, 50, 1–18.
Qiu, R., & Xu, W. (2017). Modes of land development in Shanghai. Land Use Policy, 61,
475–486.
Raymond, E., Wang, K., & Immergluck, D. (2016). Race and uneven recovery:
Neighborhood home value trajectories in Atlanta before and after the housing crisis.
Housing Studies, 31(3), 324–339.
Rosiers, F. D., Lagana, A., Thériault, M., & Beaudoin, M. (1996). Shopping centres and
house values: An empirical investigation. Journal of Property Valuation and Investment,
14(4), 41–62.
Sander, H. A., Ghosh, D., Riper, D., & Manson, S. M. (2010). How do you measure dis-
tance in spatial models? An example using open-space valuation. Environment and
Planning. B, Planning & Design, 37, 874–894.
Shatkin, G. (2007). Global cities of the South: Emerging perspectives on growth and in-
equality. Cities, 24(1), 1–15.
Shi, Y., & Li, M. (2006). The analysis of housing price gradient and its impact factors of
Shanghai city. Acta Geographica Sinica, 61(6), 604–612 (In Chinese).
SRETC (2017). Shanghai Real Estate Trading Center. Available online http://www.
fangdi.com.cn/.
SSB (Shanghai Statistical Bureau). Shanghai statistical yearbook. Beijing: China Statistical
Press, (various years).
Sun, B., Shi, W., & Ning, Y. (2010). An empirical study on polycentric urban structure of
Shanghai and strategies in future. Urban Planning Forum, 1, 58–63 (In Chinese).
Sun, B., Zhang, T., He, Z., & Wang, R. (2017). Urban spatial structure and motorization in
China. Journal of Regional Science, 57(3), 470–486.
Tan, J., & Cheong, S. A. (2016). The regime shift associated with the 2004–2008 US
housing market bubble. PLoS One, 11(9), e0162140.
Tian, G., Wei, Y. H. D., & Li, H. (2017). Combined effects of accessibility and environ-
mental health risk on housing price: A case of Salt Lake County, UT. Applied
Geography, 89, 12–21.
Timberlake, M., Wei, Y. H. D., Ma, X., & Hao, J. (2014). Global cities with Chinese
H. Li et al.
characteristics. Cities, 41, 162–170.
Wang, D., & Chai, Y. (2009). The jobs-housing relationship and commuting in Beijing,
China: The legacy of Danwei. Journal of Transport Geography, 17(1), 30–38.
Wang, D., & Huang, W. S. (2007). Effect of urban environment on residential property
values by hedonic method: A case study of Shanghai. City Planning Review, 31, 34–41
(In Chinese).
Wang, D., & Li, S. (2006). Socio-economic differentials and stated housing preferences in
Guangzhou, China. Habitat International, 30, 305–326.
Wang, Y., Ran, R., & Deng, G. (2012). Neighborhood-quality and housing value: Evidence
from urban micro data. Journal of Management and Sustainability, 2(1), 128–136.
Wei, Y. H. D. (Ed.). (2017). Urban land and sustainable development. Basel, Switzerland:
MDPI.
Wei, Y. H. D., Bi, X., Wang, M., & Ning, Y. (2016). Globalization, economic restructuring,
and locational trajectories of software firms in Shanghai. The Professional Geographer,
68(2), 211–226.
Wen, H., Jia, S., & Guo, X. (2005). Hedonic price analysis of urban housing: An empirical
research on Hangzhou, China. Journal of Zhejiang University. Science, 6A(8), 907–914.
Wen, H., & Tao, Y. (2015). Polycentric urban structure and housing price in the transi-
tional China: Evidence from Hangzhou. Habitat International, 46, 138–146.
Wen, H., Zhang, Y., & Zhang, L. (2014). Do educational facilities affect housing price? An
empirical study in Hangzhou, China. Habitat International, 42, 155–163.
Wu, C., Ye, X., Du, Q., & Luo, P. (2017). Spatial effects of accessibility to parks on housing
prices in Shenzhen, China. Habitat International, 63, 45–54.
179
Cities 91 (2019) 165–179
Wu, J., Song, Y., Liang, J., Wang, Q., & Lin, J. (2017). Impact of mixed land use on
housing values in high-density areas: Evidence from Beijing. Journal of Urban
Planning and Development, 144(1), 05017019.
Wu, Q., Cheng, J., Chen, G., Hammel, D. J., & Wu, X. (2014). Socio-spatial differentiation
and residential segregation in the Chinese city based on the 2000 community-level
census data: A case study of the inner city of Nanjing. Cities, 39, 109–119.
Wu, W. (2002). Migrant housing in urban China: Choices and constraints. Urban Affairs
Review, 38(1), 90–119.
Xiao, Y., Chen, X., Li, Q., Yu, X., Chen, J., & Guo, J. (2017). Exploring determinants of
housing prices in Beijing: An enhanced hedonic regression with open access POI data.
International Journal of Geo-Information, 6, 358.
Yang, R., & Long, R. (2016). Analysis of the influencing factors of the public willingness to
participate in public bicycle projects and intervention strategies-A case study of
Jiangsu Province, China. Sustainability, 8(4), 349.
Yang, Y. R., & Chang, C. (2007). An urban regeneration regime in China: A case study of
urban redevelopment in Shanghai's Taipingqiao Area. Urban Studies, 44(9),
1809–1826.
Yuan, F., Wu, J., Wei, Y. H. D., & Wang, L. (2018). Policy change, amenity, and spatio-
temporal dynamics of housing prices in Nanjing, China. Land Use Policy, 75, 225–236.
Zhai, S., Xu, X., Yang, L., Zhou, M., Zhang, L., & Qiu, B. (2015). Mapping the popularity of
urban restaurants using social media data. Applied Geography, 63, 113–120.
Zhang, X., Liu, X., Hang, J., Yao, D., & Shi, G. (2016). Do urban rail transit facilities affect
housing prices? Evidence from China. Sustainability, 8, 380.