The effects of waterfront development on housing prices: the case of eastern Baltimore

Abstract

Residential waterfront development has taken advantage of available land and water amenities in the centrally-located ports of many American cities. Its impacts on the housing market of the surrounding neighborhoods may not have been distributed evenly. This study measures how waterfront development has affected housing prices in a residential area south-east of Baltimore's downtown through time. The results indicate that development on the waterfront has had a positive impact on prices in the entire study area during the analyzed time-frame. However, this impact has been far more pronounced on the prices of properties located within a short distance from the water even decades after the initial projects on the waterfront were started. The study thus support claims that waterfront development has created uneven patterns of growth in Baltimore.