Property values offer a lens through which to explain urban phenomena. It is therefore important to understand the theories and practices of property valuation as planners. This article brings together and advances planning and real estate fields by probing the meaning of value underlying a common valuation technique, the discounted cash flow analysis. When using this technique, income-generating properties are largely valued for their exchange value, while much of their use values are overlooked. Learning from the field of social entrepreneurship, I propose a framework for capturing the use values of a property, more specifically, its impact on existing socioeconomic inequalities.

In light of the calls to relax restrictive density regulations, this paper examines how increasing residential development capacity, i.e. upzoning, may change the demographic, socio-economic and housing characteristics of the affected neighbourhoods. We examine the neighbourhood-level upzonings of New York City to answer this question. We find that upzoning is positively associated with signs of gentrification – upzoned neighbourhoods became whiter, more educated and more affluent in the long run. Upzoning is also associated with increases in housing production, but housing prices also increased. Most importantly, we find that these effects varied significantly by the intensity of upzoning and the pre-upzoning local contexts. Neighbourhoods affected by intense upzonings experienced gentrification more intensely, along with greater housing production, rent growth and housing price appreciation. Black-majority and low-income neighbourhoods experienced gentrification to the greatest extent, while neighbourhoods with high demand for housing saw the greatest increases in housing supply. We discuss different mechanisms of gentrification likely at play for the different types of neighbourhoods.