About

PLACES-FMV (CONUS) is a set of parcel-level estimates of the fair market value (FMV) of vacant lands in the contiguous United States (CONUS). The estimates are derived statistically from data of millions of vacant land sales between 2000-2021, using an ensemble of regression estimators (multilinear, tree ensembles) at multiple spatial scales.

Government, academic, and non-profit analysts will be able to access the data volume at no cost through the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). A group of early adopters from academic, governmental, and non-profit organizations is currently scrutinizing early versions of the dataset prior to public release.

The 2020s have seen new investments into conservation planning efforts in the United States. In the midst of the Covid pandemic, the Great American Outdoors Act created the largest-ever federal budget for investments into long-term land protection. Shortly after, the Biden administration launched the “America The Beautiful” initiative, a call to action to work together to conserve, connect, and restore 30 percent of U.S. lands and water by 2030 (“30 by 30”).

Increasing land protection can have many public benefits, including forest carbon storage, wildlife conservation, flood risk adaptation, protection of exurban farmland, and equitable access to open space and urban parks. It often involves public expenses for purchases of land rights through land acquisitions and conservation easements. Understanding the benefits and costs of transactions can shed new light on preferences in public choices, enhance transparency, and contribute to the long-term cost-effectiveness of public investment portfolios.

The research is supported by the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Human-Environment and Geographical Sciences (HEGS) program (grant #2149243) and conducted at Boston University’s PLACES lab.

Learn more about the project: placeslab.org/nsf-hegs

GitHub repository: https://github.com/chrnolte/places-conus

Data downloads: placeslab.org/fmv-usa

• People
  • Boston University
  • Collaborator panel
  • Code contributors
• PLACES

Note

Data for the first phase of this research (Aug 1, 2022 - Sep 30, 2023) provided by Zillow through the Zillow Transaction and Assessment Dataset (ZTRAX). More information can be found at http://www.zillow.com/ztrax. The results and opinions are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the position of Zillow Group.

Note

We thank Regrid’s Data with Purpose program, which provides access to nonprofit researchers on a “pay what you can” basis. For two thirds of CONUS counties, PLACES-FMV (CONUS) is based on Regrid parcel data. (For the remaining counties, you can find publicy parcel boundary data online at no cost.)