Instituto Escolhas launches new platform focused on housing and mobility

#Quantoé? Morar Longe will present data from Metropolitan Region of São Paulo

Do you live far? Have you stopped to think how much it costs for you to live far from the central area of the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo? What is the impact of this on your day to day life? According to the UN, 55% of the world’s population currently lives in cities and it is estimated that this number reaches 68% by 2050.

On January 22 Escolhas Institute launches the Platform #Quanto é? Morar longe, which makes it possible for the citizen to know the monetary and non-monetary costs associated with each area of São Paulo´s Metropolitan Region (SPMR), which has 39 municipalities, a total of 7,946 km², where approximately 21.5 million inhabitants, according to Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics – IBGE estimates. It is the main urban clutter of South America and is the fifth largest urban clutter of the planet.

To get an idea of these costs, Escolhas provides information on land prices (R$/m2), quality of education, violence rates with the probability of occurrence of homicides and average time of work displacement in relation to the address of the chosen SPMR.

Land price and Quality of live

In order to estimate the value of land, the “hedonic price model” was used. This model is widely use to analyze the urban real estate markets, since it identifies the implicit characteristics of real estate that go beyond those directly observable to compose the price. Regarding violence, in Brazil, unfortunately, she has a ZIP code. The perception of insecurity entails direct damages to the quality of life of the population, as it directly affects access to activities in public areas and imposes a permanent vigilance regime in people’s lives. The measurement had the georeferenced information of police reports occurred from January 2003 and May 2017, provided by the Public Security Secretariat of São Paulo (SSP/SP).

Education

In order to measure the quality of education, the platform was based on data from the Basic Education Development Index (IDEB) georeferenced from public elementary schools present in the SPMR. This indicator provides us with two important results: the student’s performance in the assessments and whether they are taking the grade appropriate for their age (school flow).

The calculation of this index uses data of school approval and the averages of performance in the student evaluations at the end of education stages (4th and 8th grades of elementary and high school). The value of the IDEB is between 0 and 10, and the higher the value of the indicator, the better the quality of basic education. Information is collected at the school level.

Urban Mobility

The platform also enables citizens to obtain a personalized assessment of the cost of their mobility, an estimate of the monetary cost of travel time and the amount of greenhouse gases (GHG) emitted during their journey. When choosing start, destination and means of transportation (public transport, car, bicycle and walking), the platform provides the distance, the estimated time, the cost of that time and the total emissions generated.

In the case of public transport, for the urban bus, the per capita calculation of emissions is by fuel burn such as diesel. For subway/train, bicycle and hike do not have GHG emissions and for the car, the calculation of emissions calculates the ethanol and gasoline options.

The platform was developed based on the results of the study “Morar Longe: the Minha Casa Minha Vida Program and the expansion of the Metropolitan Regions” and the results of the master’s thesis of the former scholarship holder Ricardo Campante Cardoso Vale of the Economics and Environment Escolhas Scholarship Program “The welfare costs of traffic congestion in the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo”.

Check out the Platform here!