Urban Accessibility, Housing Prices and Socio-Economic Status: A Spatial Analysis of Istanbul Neighbourhoods
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25034/ijcua.2026.v10n2-9Keywords:
accessibility , spatial inequality, socio-economic status, housing prices, Ridge regression, Istanbul , hedonic pricing, urban equityAbstract
Multidimensional accessibility shapes both housing markets and the socio-economic composition of neighbourhoods, yet fine-grained evidence from rapidly urbanising contexts remains limited. This study examines how pedestrian accessibility to 88 urban services relates to listed housing prices and socio-economic status across 816 Istanbul neighbourhoods with at least 1,000 residents. Indicators from the municipal 34dakika.istanbul platform, measured as the population share reaching each service within a 17-minute walk, are aggregated into ten equally weighted categories and a Combined Accessibility Index. Least squares residuals display pronounced spatial dependence (Moran's I = 0.340, p = 0.001), so spatial lag and spatial error models are estimated and selected on robust Lagrange multiplier tests and information criteria. In the preferred spatial lag specification, only Transport and Mobility accessibility remains associated with higher prices after Holm correction (β = 0.397, p = 0.001); a 0.10 increase corresponds to a 4.4 per cent direct and a 9.1 per cent total price difference. For socio-economic status, transport (β = 13.35), health (β = 11.74) and economy (β = 11.51) accessibility are positive, whereas basic-needs coverage is negative (β = −20.28). A paired bootstrap shows that economy and basic-needs services are spread more evenly than education, health and transport services.
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