Estimating the non-market benefits of an urban park: Does proximity matter?

There is increasing and widespread public support for public park provision in urban areas given that they provide an array of different recreational activities enhancing the citizen's quality of life. A contingent valuation survey of 900 randomly chosen inhabitants was undertaken in Valencia (Spain) to estimate the non-market benefits derived from the provision of a new urban park where there is currently an old train station. In conducting our study we distinguished between the districts of the city more and less affected by the project according to the proximity to the future park. Our main finding is that the mean willingness to pay (WTP) is considerably higher for people who live closer to the planned park as it is more accessible to them. The fact that this finding may be rather obvious does not in any case reduce its importance in light of the policy implications that could be derived from it. To give further credence to this result we used both parametric and non-parametric approaches, which yielded similar results. Finally, an equation was estimated in order to validate the results obtained from a theoretical point of view.