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Demand for Urban Forests and Economic Welfare: Evidence from the Southeastern U.S. Cities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 September 2016

Pengyu Zhu  and
Yaoqi Zhang
Pengyu Zhu
Affiliation:
School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences, Auburn University, AL
Yaoqi Zhang
Affiliation:
School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences, Auburn University, AL
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Abstract

This study examines the relationship between urban forests and household income and population density in the 149 cities with populations over 40,000 in nine southeastern states. Our empirical results show that urban forest percentage across the cities has characteristics of the environmental Kuznets curve. We find that household income around $39,000 is a threshold that changes the relationship between income and urban forest coverage from negative to positive, whereas the impact of population density on urban forests is just the opposite, from positive to negative when population density is around 180 persons per square kilometer.

Keywords

environmental Kuznets curveenvironmental qualityincomeland usepopulation densitytree canopyC31Q23Q56Q57R14
Type
Invited Paper Sessions
Information
Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , August 2006 , pp. 279 - 285
Copyright
Copyright © Southern Agricultural Economics Association 2006

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