Unequal benefits of metro station proximity: Income-level differences in housing price effects in Medellín

This study examines how proximity to metro stations is associated with housing prices in Medellín, Colombia, and how this relationship varies across income groups and spatial scales. While the capitalization of transport infrastructure into real estate values is widely recognized, its social and spatial heterogeneity remains underexplored in Latin American cities. Using a dataset of georeferenced housing transactions and spatial information on urban amenities, we estimate hedonic pricing models—including Ordinary Least Squares, Spatial Autoregressive, and Spatial Error Models—with income-level interaction terms and stratified buffer thresholds optimized through an iterative procedure. The results reveal that metro accessibility is not uniformly valued across the city. In low-income districts, proximity to a metro station is associated with a price premium of approximately 9.4%, whereas in high-income neighborhoods, it corresponds to a statistically significant price penalty of 9.8%. Moreover, the spatial reach of metro influence decreases with income level, ranging from 1.7 km in low-income areas to just 0.6 km in high-income zones. Among all urban amenities considered, metro stations exhibit the most pronounced variation in market valuation across socioeconomic groups. These findings underscore the need for disaggregated, income-sensitive approaches in both spatial modeling and urban policy design. The buffer-based strategy proposed here offers a flexible and empirically grounded method to capture how accessibility is differentially perceived and valued in stratified urban contexts. In cities of the Global South—where inequality is spatially embedded—planning efforts must account for these disparities to ensure that transit investments promote inclusive urban development.