I don’t usually read the NY Times real estate section (I guess I guy can dream, but I’m never gonna live in any of those houses). So I missed this article about former-Ithaca activist Paul Glover’s efforts to plant orchards on vacant lots in Philadelphia.
Susan M. Wachter, a professor of real estate finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, … found that cleaning up vacant land raised the value of adjacent homes by 20 percent.
[She also] found that planting trees on residential blocks citywide raised property values on the block by almost 10 percent. The increased market values are attributable to a “combination of landscape changing dramatically, and also a signal that someone is reinvesting in the neighborhood,†Ms. Wachter said.
The article mentions similar pioneering efforts in Austin and other cities.
Glover is famous here in Ithaca for inventing Ithaca Hours, a local bartering currency.
What a great idea. And I’ve heard of Ithaca Hours–there’s been talk of using a similar “local currency” here–but I figured it was invented by committee. Nice to see the brain behind the idea there.