Spatial Access to Metro Transit Villages and Housing Prices in Seoul, Korea

As many cities face traffic congestion, pollution, and urban sprawl, transit villages with transit-oriented development (TOD) and higher ridership have been a core theme for academics and professionals. Evaluating access to metro transit villages with higher transit demand is critical to assess how TOD and changed transit demand affect neighborhoods. Few studies have measured spatial access to metro transit villages by combining street configuration and metro ridership to identify its effects on property prices. This study used five newly developed accessibility and centrality measures to simultaneously capture street configuration and metro ridership within a neighborhood. The empirical models confirmed the effects of accessibility and centrality to metro transit villages on housing prices considering multiple walkable neighborhood scales. The models revealed that accessibility and centrality to metro transit villages with higher ridership were capitalized in higher housing prices within a 2-km network radius. However, prices of houses that were too close to metro stations obtained weaker premiums due to negative externalities such as crowdedness, congestion, and noise. Residents value housing in walkable neighborhoods with dense, interconnected streets directly routed to metro stations, and transit-oriented communities with higher metro ridership.