Introduction

Abstract

Over the years, numerous conceptual, theoretical, and empirical studies have attempted to formulate, model, and quantify how the built environment is valued by people. However, studies of the valuation of urban morphology are rare, due to the lack of a powerful methodology to quantify the urban form accurately. In addition, neoclassical economic theories have emphasized location with respect to the city center as the major spatial determinant of land value, but this has become weaker or even insignificant according to the findings of some current studies of mega cities, such as Los Angeles (Heikkila et al. 1989). Urban street networks contain spatial information on the arrangement of spaces, land use, building density, and patterns of movement and therefore give each location (or street segment) in the city a value in terms of accessibility. Thus, people can be thought of as paying for certain characteristics of the accessibility of the location of their choice. Moreover, they are likely to pay different amounts of money according to the different demand levels.