How Green Do We Want to Live in 2100? Lessons Learned from the Homes of the Present-Day Rich

This study explores the extent to which rich Dutch households live green, in the form of green surrounding homes directly and nearby public green. The authors interpret this ‘greenness’ as a signal of how green the wider population wishes to live in the long-term as it grows wealthier over time. In our analyses of property transaction data on the 2009–2012 residential market, we focus on 2303 properties that sold for at least 1 million Euros, the ‘properties of the rich’. Results indicate that the rich live relatively green: on average, and depending on local degrees of urbanization, the parcels of million Euro properties are up to 7.0 times larger than parcels of lower priced properties. We find too, that the rich live closer to public green spaces than the more general population does, especially if such green is highly appreciated by a wide public. Furthermore, the rich are found to live in either very highly urban locations or in the least urban locations—if these are nearby cities. We perform basic long-term land-use forecasts of demand for residential space across local property markets, and findings suggest that preference for green living will increase over time. Our results especially show that how well these green preferences are accommodated by existing residential structures may become increasingly problematic as and if we grow wealthier over time. Our findings may foster long ongoing research and policy debate on urban planning.