Does Administrative Segmentation Have a Place in Property Analysis?
Quebec City is a patchwork of living spaces matched by a corresponding number of residential sub-markets. Four hundred years of history have spawned a diversified milieu since the city’s foundation, in 1608. However, questions have been raised about the appropriateness of administrative segmentation in urban studies. No such thing as an ideal form spatial segmentation exists, but there are approaches that allow the demarcation of fairly homogeneous geographical entities and which can be adapted to given situations. This study presents an historical and morphological (HM) view of spatial segmentation based on historical, sociological and morphological criteria and which stands as an alternative to the usual administrative partitioning typical of residential market studies. Discriminant analyses were used to test the viability of three kinds of segmentation : one, historical and morphological – the approach advocated here – and the other two, administrative, before and after the municipal mergers. In particular, our study, which uses multivariate data and statistics, is focussed on the Quebec City single-family residential market. Finally, the three types of segmentation are integrated into hedonic pricing models and used to measure the extent of their influence on variations in implicit sale prices. Our findings suggest that HM segmentation, though not perfect, is nonetheless more viable than administrative demarcation.