The public demand for open space: The case of Connecticut communities

At both the state and national levels, public policies are being designed to stimulate the demand for locally owned open space. Yet very little is known about the factors that influence the demand for open space and the sensitivity of demand to price and income. To fill the void, this study uses data for Connecticut cities and towns to estimate the public demand for open space. The empirical results suggest that the demand for open space is relatively insensitive to changes in price but highly responsive to changes in income. The findings also show that federal and state open space may tend to crowd out locally owned open space and that locally owned open space represents a highly congestable good. Finally, the analysis indicates that privately owned open space is not a good substitute for locally owned public open space. (C) 2001 Academic Press.