Abstract
Development of environmental infrastructure is one of the most significant subjects in the current urban planning system of most metropolises, in order to restore natural entities and to reduce environmental lord. The authors investigate structure of environmental value of public gardens in cities and evaluate those values by the hedonic price approach. First, the authors show several important points and difficulties for the evaluation process of environmental goods and services. Second, the authors also show functions of public gardens which bring benefitis to urban society, as well as range of the value categories which the hedonic method is capable of dealing with. Third, land price data of three areas, namely Tarumi Area and Suma Area in Kobe City, and neighboring Nishinomiya City, are analyzed by introducing environmental variables. Several findings for the empirical usage of the hedonic price method to evaluate environmental values are described.
