Marrying Market Timing with Human-Centered Urban Design: How Investors and Municipalities Can Better Realize Transit Oriented Development

My thesis sought to better understand the interaction between transit investments and property values. Specifically, I sought to understand when in the investment cycle residential properties went from their pre- to post- transit value and what urban design impacts could help amplify this change. For each of the corridors studied, market sales transaction data was collected for all residential properties that were within a half-mile walkshed of each new station. From this data, we calculated growth rate premiums that existed for the property values in the transit area walksheds versus a control, as well as how these premiums evolved over time. Surveys were also conducted in each of the corridors to document and quantify the existence of various characteristics associated with walkable human-centered urban design. This data was applied to the market sales data, in a multiple regression analysis, to determine which urban design features were most associated with higher property value growth rates.