Barriers to Urban Spatial Development : Evidence from the 2010-2011 Christchurch Earthquakes

Rational urban spatial development with durable structural capital entails discontinuous central densification. Such densification can be held back by interdependent redevelopment incentives among adjacent landowners—a market failure that distorts spatial development. We investigate such distortion in Christchurch, New Zealand, by studying land-value change across neighborhoods in the city before and after the 2010-2011 earthquakes. We show that neighborhood-wide loss in structural capital due to seismic hazard exposure raised land value in central neighborhoods but reduced it in non-central ones. These divergent land-value changes reflect the mitigation of spatial-development distortion because of reduced barriers to neighborhood redevelopment. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author/TVSEDU3XUZ2WTXUGFWJP?target=10.1111/jors.12562