Friso De Vor

Henri L F De Groot

The Impact of Industrial Sites on Residential Property Values A hedonic pricing analysis from the Netherlands

Keywords: Industrial sites, Negative externalities, Hedonic pricing JEL classifications: O18, R30, R52

Industrial sites cause several negative externalities. In order to quantify these negative effects, we estimate the impact of distance to industrial sites on residential property values. We use data on houses sold in the Randstad region and in the Province of North-Brabant (both located in the Netherlands) in the year 2005, together with data on the characteristics of industrial sites in the same regions and period. The distance to an industrial site exhibits a statistically significant negative effect on the value of residential properties. However, the effect is largely localized within a relatively short distance from the nearest industrial site.

INTRODUCTION

The results of Dutch policies aimed at providing an adequate supply of industrial land are mixed.

In accordance with the spatial policy objectives, industrial sites have become the main location for supplying industrial land. Slowly but steadily, both the amount and share of employment on industrial sites are rising. Industrial sites are now a favourable place to settle for many firms (Louw and Bontekoning, 2007), and can be considered important contributors to the (local) economy: such sites occupy about 2 per cent of the total area of the Netherlands, and account for about one-third of the national output (Louw et al., 2007). However, the recent planning debates about Dutch industrial sites have focused strongly on the quality of industrial sites (Louw et al., 2004). Concerns have been raised about the possible negative external effects of industrial activities on other firms, on nature, and particularly on households (Schuur, 2001; Needham and Louw, 2003; Louw et al., 2004; Blaauw, 2007). Although the development of industrial sites in the Netherlands is based on the mono-functional policy concept of separating industry and housing, residents may still be affected by industrial sites because of a multitude of perceived disamenities, such as noise, traffic, congestion, air pollution and obstruction of view.

This study contributes to the planning debate by elaborating on the implications of the presence of industrial sites on their immediate vicinity, distinguishing between various types of industrial sites. 1 It aims to measure the negative externalities generated by industrial sites, and to obtain insight into the scope of these externalities. By means of a hedonic pricing analysis of residential property transactions, we identify the impact -ceteris paribus -of the distance to industrial sites on property transaction prices. Furthermore, we look into the implications of the characteristics of an industrial site on the magnitude of its impact by differentiating according to the size of the industrial site concerned. Many existing studies dealing with the topic of negative externalities 2 generated by industrial sites consider a specific, tightly framed, study area comprising a restricted number of industrial sites. These studies arrive at a multitude of outcomes referring to a variety of specific cases. 2 In this respect, our study deviates from this literature by employing a more general approach: we analyse a comprehensive sample of industrial sites and identify the effects of these sites on neighbouring house prices in the Randstad region and in the Province of North-Brabant (both in the Netherlands).

The paper is organized as follows. We start with a discussion of the literature on negative externalities originating from industrial facilities and hedonic pricing. The Dutch (policy) context with regard to the negative external effects of industrial sites is reviewed subsequently. We then continue with a presentation of the characteristics of the data set underlying our analysis and the research setup, followed by a discussion of the econometric model and the estimation results.

The paper concludes with a summary and discussion of policy implications. LITERATURE REVIEW Farber (1998) provides a survey of the literature on the impact of undesirable facilities on house values due to perceived disamenities. Such concerns range from worries about health risks to those about the public image of the community. They can manifest themselves in property markets, since it is most likely that people are willing to pay more to reside in locations further located from perceived disamenities. The survey confirms that undesirable facilities (e.g. landfills, waste sites, hazardous manufacturing facilities) reduce property values in their immediate vicinity. These adverse effects diminish with distance, resulting in increased property values as distance from these sites increases. Moreover, these adverse property value effects appear to be relatively localized. Other examples can be found in a number of studies which have shown effects on property values caused by proximity to a contaminated site. These studies (e.g. Smolen et al., 1991; Mendelsohn et al., 1992) have reported adverse impacts on values, ranging from as low as 0.24 per cent to as high as 25 per cent, depending on the extent of pollution and the location of the property. In view of the Dutch situation, Visser and van Dam (2006) have analysed the housing market in the Netherlands as a whole and have focused on, among other things, the contribution of environmental characteristics to house price variation. By taking into account various characteristics within the immediate vicinity (50 metres) of the dwelling concerned (e.g. presence of parks, open space and industrial land, nature and quality of buildings, social status of the neighbourhood, distance to services, and infrastructure), they conclude that property value is positively affected by the quality of its vicinity in terms of the availability of amenities. For instance, houses located in low-density, leafy neighbourhoods, are valued significantly higher than houses in high-density areas with a lack of parks and open space.

Conversely, disamenities, such as the presence of industrial land and proximity to a highway, affect the prices negatively. These findings suggest that effects generated by (dis)amenities operate especially on a local scale, which confirms the notion that impact decreases with distance. These outcomes are confirmed by the more detailed studies concerning the Dutch situation of Rouwendal and van der Straaten (2008), Dekkers and Van der Straaten (2008) and Debrezion et al. (2006). The first of these studies shows that, in three major Dutch cities (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and The Hague), parks and public gardens within the immediate vicinity of houses increase their value. Considering the three investigated cities, the city of Amsterdam has the highest price per square metres of floor area, which is in line with the tight housing market situation in Amsterdam and the fact that the average floor area is the smallest in Amsterdam. However, the willingness-to-pay for open space appears to be lowest in Amsterdam. This finding is caused by the relatively low average quality of the different parks and public gardens in Amsterdam, compared with those in Rotterdam and The Hague. It shows that, as well as vicinity, the quality of the amenity matters. The second study investigates the effect of aircraft noise on house prices in the highly urbanized area around Amsterdam Airport. Controlling for multiple sources of traffic noise, air traffic yields the largest price impact, followed by railway traffic, and road traffic. Finally, the third study analyses the effect of the accessibility provided by Dutch railway stations on residential house prices. It shows that house prices decrease with distance from a railway station, revealing the positive effect of proximity. This effect is enhanced by the increased frequency of train services at a station. Hence, these three studies provide insights into the efficiency of public policy in terms of optimal open space provision, aircraft noise reduction measures, and railway station accessibility, respectively.

As the existing literature has mainly focussed on cataloguing the adverse effects on property values, less is known about the magnitude with which the property values may increase following a clean-up or regeneration of a site. Exceptions are Dale et al. (1999) and McComb (2004) who report that property values around the sites under investigation appeared to be lower before the clean-up or regeneration. However, after the clean-up, the prices consistently rebounded, although in the areas closest to the site and the poorest neighbourhoods prices rebounded more slowly. These studies underline that taking into account specific properties of sites may increase the accurateness of predicting the impact effects.

The previously mentioned studies are useful to demonstrate the nature and intensity of the impact of local forms of land use. Generally, they are based on revealed preference methods to observe what individuals really pay or require in compensation for living in the vicinity of sites that generate negative externalities (Farber, 1998). Hedonic pricing methods are helpful to (Rosen, 1974). Hedonic prices are defined as the implicit prices of attributes, which are revealed to economic agents from observed prices of differentiated products and the specific amounts of characteristics associated with them. More specifically, in hedonic price analysis, house prices are regressed on a vector of inherent attributes. A hedonic equation helps to explain house prices in terms of the house's own characteristics, such as the type of dwelling, age, floor area, neighbourhood characteristics and job accessibility. Each of these attributes is assumed to be implicitly priced. The real-estate literature is replete with hedonic pricing models estimating the willingness-to-pay for housing characteristics (e.g. Linneman, 1981; Palmquist, 2005). In addition, there has been a growing literature that uses the hedonic pricing model to measure the impact of environmental amenities and disamenities on real-estate values (e.g. Kohlhase, 1991, Hite et al., 2001, Kiel and Zabel, 2001; Kaufman and Cloutier, 2006). However, hedonic pricing methods have some limitations (Farber, 1998; Kiel and Zabel, 2001). First, property markets may not be in equilibrium when the impact of the undesirable facility is estimated. This is why it would be preferable to use data on house sales over a sufficiently long period of time. Second, there is an inherent problem in statistically identifying the willingness-to-pay to avoid a disamenity. The effects of sorting in property markets play a strong role in residential location decisions. Those people who are most willing to accept a disamenity, or who have limited housing options because of income or discrimination, locate adjacent to a disamenity. As a consequence, property value differentials will underestimate the disamenity effect for the general population. Third, to the extent that the adverse activity may be locally job-enhancing, adjacent house values could be elevated because of the effect of a reduction of transportation costs. Despite these limitations which are important to bear in mind when interpreting results from hedonic pricing models, the model is very suitable to identify the scope of negative externalities generated by industrial sites as it can reveal the effect of distance to industrial sites on residential property values.

THE DUTCH CONTEXT

As in many Western countries, post-war spatial planning in the Netherlands has been dominated by mono-functional approaches. This has resulted in core spatial functions, such as housing, industry, farming, or shopping, being allocated to rather large-scale areas, often separated by 'buffers of open space'. However, several studies and the proliferation of 'mixed land use' approaches have revealed the limitations of mono-functional land use (Lagendijk, 2001; Vreeker et al., 2004). Whereas concepts of mixed land use aim to reduce urban sprawl and to promote spatial and environmental quality, the mono-functional approach presents a rather spaceconsuming form of land use which also tends to be inferior in terms of spatial quality. This notion is to a great extent reflected by the Dutch case of the provision of industrial sites, which is characterized by an abundant availability of industrial land and an associated decline of spatial quality (Gordijn et al., 2007).

In the Netherlands, local authorities are the main suppliers of building land, whether for housing or industry. On account of their statutory planning and land policy powers, they can plan and develop industrial sites 3,4 or facilitate enterprise zones. Therefore, the role of private agents in the supply of industrial land has always been limited; approximately 74 per cent of the total area of industrial land is supplied by local authorities (Segeren et al., 2005). Local authorities consider the provision of industrial sites as a key instrument of their economic policy. In accordance with their task and responsibility as a provider of industrial land, local authorities ensure that there is always a minimum amount of industrial land available for immediate sale to interested companies. Over the last decade, this approach has resulted in a yearly average disposal of 1,038 hectares of industrial sites. The stock of industrial sites in the Netherlands increased from 3,203 formal industrial sites in 1995 to 3,605 sites in 2006. In terms of land area, this represents an increase from 78,886 hectares to 94,560 hectares (Arcadis and Stec Groep, 2007). It implies a rise of industrial land area from 1.3 per cent to 2.7 per cent as share of the total area of the Netherlands. Given the growth rate of land designated for housing (8.0 per cent in the period 1993 to 2000), we can infer that the area of industrial land has risen substantially by 12.9 per cent in the same period (Gordijn et al., 2007).

An important side-effect of the ample provision of industrial land, besides a shrinking quantity of open space, is the degradation of environment and landscape. This refers not only to the obstructing consequences of the disposal of new industrial land but also to its contribution to the process of the ageing of existing industrial sites. According to the Dutch Industrial Sites Database (Arcadis and Stec Groep, 2007), 29 per cent of the total number of industrial sites (1,052 sites) were considered as 'out-dated' in 2006. These sites have substantial vacancies in the building stock and poorly maintained public spaces. Attracted by the favourable assets of recently serviced land, well-performing companies decide to move to newly developed industrial sites. As a result, this outflow of well-performing firms generates unused industrial premises and substitution by marginal firms which creates a downward spiral of attractiveness of older industrial sites concerned (Louw and Bontekoning, 2007).

In conclusion, the 'buffers' of open space are under pressure in the Netherlands. This involves a gradual diminishing of the distance of housing and other functions from industrial sites. Accordingly, the present policy of mono-functional planning, and the interplay between

DATA SET AND RESEARCH SET UP

The data used originate from two sources: industrial site data were collected from the Dutch Industrial Sites Database (IBIS), and property data from the Dutch Association of Real Estate Agents (NVM). The selected data refer to the Randstad region 5 and to the Province of North-Brabant in the Netherlands in the year 2005. The data collected on industrial sites and houses are all geo-referenced, which enables us to link these sets by using GIS (see the detailed map in Fig. 1).

Since the Randstad region and the Province of North-Brabant are jointly responsible for generating 51 per cent of the total Dutch GDP, these regions are considered as the economic core-regions of the Netherlands. Respectively, 41 per cent and 15 per cent of the Dutch population reside in the Randstad region and North-Brabant (Statistics Netherlands, 2008). The regions studied contain a considerable amount of the national stock of industrial sites. We added a 500 metres buffer zone to the initial study area to incorporate possible effects generated by industrial sites located just outside the examined region. Hence, we obtained a sample containing information on 1,201 industrial sites, 6 acquired from the Dutch Industrial Sites Database (IBIS).

These sites cover 26,703 hectares of industrial land. The IBIS database provides an inventory of formal industrial sites 7 containing information on numerous characteristics of the industrial sites concerned, of which the variables 'location' and 'type of industrial site' are the most relevant for the purpose of this paper. Regarding the variable 'type of site', the IBIS data set distinguishes five categories of industrial sites: 'heavy-industry', 'sea-harbour', 'miscellaneous', 'high-tech', and 'transport'. This typology of industrial sites is associated with the nature of an industrial site; 8 it proxies the quality of the industrial sites concerned (Arcadis and Stec Groep, 2007). However, the typology has a serious drawback in terms of its ability to distinguish between types of sites. In 2006, 60 per cent of the total area of industrial land in the Netherlands (in hectares) was classified as 'miscellaneous'. The categories 'heavy-industry', 'sea-harbour', 'high-tech', and 'transport' represent, respectively, 10 per cent, 18 per cent, 4 per cent and 4 per cent of the area. The remaining 4 per cent of industrial land has been categorized as 'unknown' (Arcadis and Stec Groep, 2007). We deal with this drawback by categorizing industrial sites in two classes which proxy the nature of an industrial site. 'Heavy industrial sites' are sites which were originally classified as heavy-industry, sea-harbour, and transport sites, as these types of sites are assumed to generate substantial nuisance in terms of noise, traffic, congestion and pollution. The category 'regular sites' comprises miscellaneous and high-tech sites. These sites are expected to create less nuisance than 'heavy sites'. In our sample, 61 sites are categorized as 'heavy' and 1,140 sites as 'regular', covering, respectively, 728 and 25,975 hectares of industrial land.

The data regarding residential property values include information on all houses sold by NVM real-estate-agents 9 in the Randstad and North-Brabant in the year 2005. We removed all observations referring to a house with a volume of less than 100 m 3 , a floor area of less than 40 Rouwendal and van der Straaten, 2008). This leaves a sample containing information on 70,684 dwellings within the defined area.

Furthermore, additional geographical information on important control variables, such as the ethnic composition and population density of the neighbourhood, location of highway exits and railway stations, and distance-to-jobs, was acquired from, respectively, Statistics Netherlands (CBS), the National Road Database (NWB), the Dutch Railways (NS) and the Netherlands Institute for Spatial Research (RPB)/Land Use Scanner. 10 Building on the hedonic valuation methodology, and allowing for its limitations, as described in the literature review, we assume that residential property values are a function of structural, neighbourhood, and industrial site variables. 11 The structural variables are the physical characteristics or attributes of the residential property, and include the numerical variables 'floor area' and 'volume'. Categorical variables indicate the presence of central heating, garage and garden, the period of construction and the type of house. The latter incorporates four basic architectural house styles: detached, semi-detached, terraced house, and apartment.

The neighbourhood variables cover the characteristics of the area in which the property is located, such as socioeconomic factors, status of the area, ease of accessibility and labour market characteristics. We include the ethnic composition (fraction of ethnic minorities) and the population-density of the 4-digit ZIP-code area in which the dwelling is located. Additionally, a regional dummy is included to indicate the region (Randstad or North-Brabant) in which the dwelling of interest is located. We control for the ease of accessibility in two ways. First, we employ the ease of accessibility by road, operationalized by the road distance (metres) from each property to the nearest highway exit. Second, we employ the ease of accessibility by railway, operationalized by the straight-line distance (metres) from each property to the nearest railway station. Allowing for the positive effects associated with the provision of local employment by the industrial site concerned, which may elevate adjacent house values, we include the minimum distance (circle radius in metres) within which a total of 100,000 jobs can be reached. This measure is a proxy for job opportunities in the vicinity of the house.

Industrial site variables refer to the perceived impact of the industrial sites that are present. This variable encompasses the characteristics of the industrial sites which are located in the vicinity of the properties concerned. The location of an industrial site, vis-à-vis residential properties, is specified by the distance from the approximate centre of a residential property to the nearest industrial site. In this respect, we include the straight-line distances in metres from each residential property to the closest point on the boundary of the industrial site. A dummy variable is included to indicate the category (heavy or regular) to which this nearest industrial site belongs. Furthermore, we assume that the size of an industrial site matters in explaining its impact on property values. Thus, we also control for the gross area 12 in hectares of the industrial sites concerned. Finally, since the data set also contains information about the date of house transactions, we include monthly dummies to capture the effects of the seasonality of the housing market. Appendix A reports the variable names, their sources, definitions and some descriptive statistics. ( )

N M L K j D D I I N N S S f P
,..., ; ,..., ; ,..., ; ,...,

1 1 1 1 = , (1)
where houses are identified by the subscript j; P j is house transaction price; and f relates the transaction price to structural (S) and neighbourhood (N) characteristics of the property, and the acteristics of the industrial sites (I) concerned. Since the effect of distance to industrial sites on property transaction prices is our variable of key interest (D), we distinguish this variable explicitly. It assumes a housing market in equilibrium, meaning that all individuals have made their utility-maximizing choices, given the prices of alternative housing locations. For individual i living in house j, the utility is given by (see Rosen, 1974):

( )

N M L K i D D I I N N S S x u u
,..., ; ,..., ; ,..., ; ,..., ;

1 1 1 1 = , (2)
which is assumed to be strictly concave. x is all other goods consumed. Set the price of x equal to 1 and measure the me of individual i, y i , in terms of units of x. This gives the following budget constraint:

( ) x D D I I N N S S P y N M L K j i + =
,..., ; ,..., ; ,..., ; ,..., 1 1 1 1 .

(3)

The maximization of utility, subject to the budget constraint, requires choosing x and ( ) 13 partial differentiation with respect to, for example, an industrial site attribute M gives the marginal implicit price for that attribute ∂P j / ∂I M .

N M L K D D I I N N S S
Economic theory provides little guidance regarding choice of functional form for the hedonic price function (Deaton and Hoehn, 2004; Neupane and Gustavson, 2008). The double natural log specification is widely employed for model estimation (Freeman, 1993), largely motivated by the fact that it allows for a simple interpretation of estimated coefficients as elasticities. However, in order to describe the pattern of distance-decay, we measure the effect of distance on house prices by using distance dummies, i.e. a less restrictive functional form, instead of employing the natural log of distance. We use distance categories with a 250 metre range to enable us to examine the effect in a detailed way (see Debrezion et al., 2006).

Endogenous determination of the cut-off distance by running models with different cut-off distances results in a distance of 2,250 metres to the nearest industrial site, beyond which house prices are no longer significantly affected by negative externalities generated by the industrial sites concerned. 13 As a consequence, the piecewise specification of distance renders nine categories up to 2,250 metres. In the empirical application, the transaction price of a house j is modelled as follows:

j n j n n m j m m l l j l k j k k j dum D I N S LnP ε ξ δ γ β α + + + + + = ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ = = = = , 9 1 , 2 1 6 1 , , 15 1 _ , ( 4
)
where all variables are defined as in Equation (1). α is a constant, and β, γ , δ and ζ are coefficients to be estimated. The variables of structural, neighbourhood, industrial site characteristics, and the distance-to-site variable for property j are, respectively, indexed by k, l, m and n. In accordance with most of the previous literature, Equation ( 4) is estimated by ordinary In our model in its simple and basic form, we assume that house prices rise with increasing distance to the nearest industrial site. More specifically, the sign and the magnitude of estimated coefficients of the separate distance dummies are, respectively, expected to be negative and decreasing at a decreasing rate as distance between the site and the property increases (i.e.

the coefficients under consideration express the price differentials between the distance category concerned and the reference group). 14 Furthermore, ceteris paribus, an increase in house prices is

EMPIRICAL RESULTS

The basic results

The basic estimation results are shown in Table 1. The majority of the results are highly statistically significant (at the 1 per cent significance level) and consistent with our hypotheses, 15

including those for the distance-to-site dummies. Looking at the industrial site characteristics size and type of site, we see that the corresponding estimated parameters have a negative and positive sign, respectively. On the one hand, this confirms our hypothesis that the larger an industrial site, the more inconvenience it generates. On the other hand, the effect of heavy sites on their immediate vicinity has significantly less impact than that of regular sites, which is remarkable since the heavy-industry sites are defined as industrial sites on which it is intended to establish highly undesirable effects in terms of environmental nuisance. A possible explanation for this unexpected finding is the relatively small occurrence of sites denoted as 'heavy' in our data set. It may also stem from an omitted variable bias (for example, lot sizes close to heavy sites being relatively large).

Considering distance, we find, consistent with our expectations, that increased distance from industrial sites increases house prices. Ceteris paribus, houses located within 250 metres of an industrial site are predicted to sell at 14.9 per cent less than houses located beyond a distance of 2,250 metres from such a site (the reference group). The estimated relationship, employing the

< INSERT TABLE 1 AROUND HERE> <INSERT FIGURE 2 AROUND HERE>

In Fig. 2, the depicted pattern suggests a logistic shape, representing the (partial) relationship between the distance to the closest industrial site and house prices. We therefore proceed by replacing the piecewise specification of distance with a logistic functional form of distance.

More specifically, we estimate the following model using nonlinear squares (NLS):

where all variables are defined as in Equation (1). Because of the transformation into the logistic specification for distance, we estimate three parameters, η 1 , η 2 and η 3 , which together characterize the partial relationship between distance and the house price. More specifically, the maximum variation of house prices as a function of distance to the nearest industrial site is captured by parameter η 1 . Furthermore, the relationship is upward sloping if 0 3 1 > ⋅η η , and the point of inflection (viz. the distance at which the curve is steepest, and thus beyond which the effect of the presence of the industrial site gradually diminishes) can be derived as: (6)

The point of inflection thus decreases with increasing values of η 3 . We refer to Appendix B for technical details.

The results of the estimation are presented in Table 2. Since the other estimated coefficients remain generally unchanged, we only report the outcomes referring to the effect of distance from an industrial site on house prices.

<INSERT TABLE 2 AROUND HERE>

With reference to the goodness-of-fit and the parsimony of the preceding models, examination of corresponding criteria does not point to one of the models being clearly preferred over the other. 17 However, given the advantages with respect to interpretation and presentation, we decide to use the more parsimonious model to characterize the relationship between distance to industrial site and house prices. On that account, a detailed look at the employed logistic functional form of the house prices as a function of the minimum distance of a house to its nearest industrial site gives us more precise information about the nature of the distance decay of the negative externalities which are generated by the industrial sites. The partial relationship between house prices and distance to the nearest industrial site can be represented as:

<INSERT FIGURE 3 AROUND HERE>

The revealed shape of the curve in Fig. 3 is in accordance with our expectations. It illustrates that the impact of negative externalities generated by industrial sites is largely localized. Increasing distance leads to a gradually diminishing increase of house prices.

A more detailed look at industrial site size

In view of the estimation results of Equation ( 5), we infer that the nature of the distance-decay of negative externalities generated by industrial sites is largely localized. Amongst other things, we have seen that the point of inflection is at 1,093 metres. However, we have neglected the potential relevance of the interplay between the effect of distance and another relevant industrial site characteristic, such as the gross area of the site.

The value of the estimated coefficient of the gross area of the nearest industrial site, irrespective of which model we use, equals -0.012 (statistically significant at the 1 per cent level). This implies that an increase of 1 per cent of the gross area of the nearest industrial site decreases house price by 0.012 per cent. However, it is plausible to contend that the effect of the 19 increase of site area on house prices modifies with increasing distance from the site concerned.

We therefore allow for interaction effects between gross site area and distance to the nearest site.

Interaction of these parameters with industrial site acreage will result in a change of the nature of the distance decay, in that it becomes conditional on site acreage. However, sequential regression model runs (NLS) for separate 'site size-distance' interaction terms, and all three site sizedistance interaction terms together, only yield statistically significant estimates (at the 5 per cent level) for the model which controls for η 1 •LnGrossarea (φ 1 ). 18 This model is specified as follows, where all variables are defined as in Equation ( 5):

) ( ) ( 1 , 2 1 6 1 , , 15
1 3 2 3 2 1 j j D Ln D Ln m j m m l l j l k j k k j e e I N S LnP η η η η η δ γ β α + + = = = + + + + + = ∑ ∑ ∑ ε η ϕ η η η η + + ⋅ + + + ) ( ) ( 1 1 3 2 3 2 1 ) ( j j D Ln D Ln j e e a LnGrossAre . (8)
The results of the estimation are presented in Table 3. We only report the outcomes referring to the effects of site size, distance from an industrial site, and the corresponding interaction effect on house prices.

< INSERT TABLE 3 AROUND HERE >

The estimated interaction coefficient (φ 1 ) indicates that the effect of distance on house prices, referring to the range, rises with increasing site size. In other words, an increase of 1 per cent gross area of the industrial site concerned elevates the accompanying distance effect by 0.008 per hectare, 25 hectares and 50 hectares, given a change in the distance-to-site variable. As well as observing that the overall price-level of houses located near 'small' industrial sites exceeds the price level of 'larger' sites, we also observe that the range or variation of the house prices increases as the size of the nearest industrial site increases. Furthermore, the relationship between site size and distance to the site appears to be nonlinear, in the sense that the effect of size change is relatively larger for 'small' sites than for 'large' sites.

<INSERT FIGURE 4 AROUND HERE>

Robustness analysis

The results so far show that the findings concerning the marginal effect of the presence of an industrial site on house prices, as measured by distance-to-site, are robust to the employed functional forms, viz. the piecewise and logistic specification of distance. In accordance with our findings concerning goodness-of-fit and parsimony of the model, we prefer to use the logistic functional form. In order to test the robustness of our results, we replicated the corresponding regression model employing different subsets of the original data, and, finally, we have added municipality dummies to the basic model to examine whether the results are sensitive to potential unobserved local circumstances.

First, we conducted model runs for four different subsamples comprising houses which are located, respectively, within 500, 1,000, 1,500 and 2,000 metres from the nearest industrial The regression estimates are strongly in line with the findings discussed before: they confirm that there is a lack of variation in house prices within short distance from an industrial site, and, conversely, that expanding the sample sizes leads to a rise of house prices variation across distance as, amongst others, represented by an increasing parameter η 1 . 19 Second, we examined the sensitivity of the empirical results to regional specifications by dividing the transaction data into two subsamples, viz. the Randstad and the Province of North-Brabant, respectively. 20 The model run for the Randstad sample yields coefficients which are fully consistent with the general findings, regarding sign as well as the statistical significance of the estimated effects. However, the impact of the presence of an industrial site on house prices appears to be more pronounced in the Randstad region than in the entire area of examination, in the sense that house prices are increasing at a faster rate as the distance to the nearest industrial site increases. For the sake of comprehensibility, these outcomes have been displayed graphically (see Fig. 5). Conversely, the results for North-Brabant with regard to distance yield statistically insignificant outcomes. Displaying the corresponding transaction price gradient reveals a relationship between distance and house price which exhibits a logarithmic form. 21 In North-Brabant the effect of industrial site presence on house prices is, apparently, manifested within a relatively short distance of the site concerned. To get more insight into this regional anomaly, we have conducted additional model runs for the Province of North-Brabant and the Randstad separately, explicitly accounting for the nature of industrial sites in terms of type and size. 22 The outcomes turned out to be consistent with the aforementioned findings. In North-Brabant, beyond a distance of approximately 750 metres there is no discernible impact of distance to the closest site on house prices, irrespective of type and size of the industrial site. Concerning the Randstad, the revealed partial relationship between distance to industrial site and house prices 22 features a logistic shape. Given that we have controlled for the industrial site characteristics of the investigated regions, the functioning of regional housing markets thus seems to differ considerably. Likewise, replicating the preceding regressions using the piecewise distance specification instead of the logistic distance specification yields consistent results, indicating that the employed model is sensitive to geographical considerations. 23 <INSERT FIGURE 5 AROUND HERE> Finally, estimating the basic model with the inclusion of 219 municipality dummies, each corresponding to the municipality in which the dwelling concerned is located (taking the municipality of Amsterdam as reference group), yields outcomes which are qualitatively as well as quantitatively comparable to those obtained with the basic logistic specification (see Table 4).

Considering the estimated partial relationship between distance to industrial site and house prices, the parameter η 1 , which captures the maximum variation of house prices as a function of distance to the nearest industrial site, slightly increases from 0.169 to 0.186. Furthermore, by using Equation ( 7) the point of inflection is at 1,133 metres (instead of at 1,093 metres). The remainder of the estimated coefficients are also consistent with the basic model estimates.

Hence, we may infer that the revealed effect of distance-to-site on house prices is robust, in the sense that its nature is hardly affected by potential unobserved heterogeneity, stemming from specific local circumstances. The main aim of this paper was to study the impact of the presence of industrial sites on their immediate vicinity. Applying a hedonic pricing model, we valued the negative externalities generated by activities located on industrial sites in the Randstad region and the Province of North-Brabant (both in the Netherlands), in the year 2005. The effect of these negative externalities is proxied by estimation of the distance-decay of house prices in the vicinity of industrial sites. In accordance with previous hedonic pricing studies, our results clearly show that the presence of an industrial site has a statistically significant negative effect on the value of residential properties: house prices rise with increasing distance to the nearest industrial site.

< INSERT

However, in contrast to previous hedonic pricing studies that we know of, we employ a logistic functional form to reveal the nature of the effect of distance-to-site on house prices. This leads to a relationship between distance and residential property prices which is best described as 'dichotomous': relatively close to a site, negative externalities have a strong negative effect on house prices which convexly decreases up to a certain distance. Beyond this point, in our case 1,093 metres, the negative effect on house prices concavely decreases till it fades out with increasing distance. Furthermore, we find that the effect of site size intervenes with the effect of distance on house prices, in the sense that this interactive effect affects the maximum variation of the distance effect: the larger the site, the larger the range of houses which are affected by the presence of the industrial site concerned.

Our outcomes demonstrate that the impact of negative externalities is largely localized, implying that the perception of the spatial quality of the neighbourhood is affected by the presence of an industrial site, and to a certain extent by the size of an industrial site. In addition, our study may provide spatial planners with more insight into setting zoning guidelines in order to decrease potential inconvenience resulting from the presence of an industrial site. We have to be careful, however, in deriving inferences with regard to the latter, as our study only employs the revealed preferences of house buyers in the vicinity. In view of this, we should take into account that our approach is sensitive to sorting of individuals driven by variation in the willingness-to-accept a disamenity. This may be manifested by underestimation of the distanceto-site effect within a short distance of an industrial site. Our results, furthermore, neglect the preferences of other stakeholders, for instance employees of the firms located on the sites or the visitors to these firms, who may attach different values to the impact of industrial sites. Another possible shortcoming is the variation across regions. As we obtained substantially different parameters regarding the effects of distance on house price for the Randstad and North-Brabant subsets, it reduces the general applicability of the method. This regional sensitivity may be of special importance for policy makers.

In conclusion, the findings of this paper provide insight into the extent of negative externalities involved with location of certain industrial activities on a specific site. The observed impacts address the notion of the spatial quality of an industrial site. Despite some caveats, they provide useful information that can help with prioritizing and assessing spatial planning approaches. The first-order derivative of this function (F) with respect to distance (D) equals:

F

2 1 3 1 ) 1 ( ) ( ' 3 2 3 2 η η η η η η j j j D e D e D F + = - , so 0 ) ( ' > j D F if 0 3 1 > ⋅η η . (B.2)
The second-order derivative equals: 'miscellaneous', 'high-tech', and 'transport'. This typology of industrial sites, as defined by IBIS, is associated with the nature of the industrial site concerned. 2 See, for example, Zeiss (1999) who analyses the results of 69 studies dealing with the negative effects of industrial facilities on their direct vicinity. 3 In general, an industrial site can be considered as a collective location for the establishment of firms (Bak, 1985). 4 Sites that are designated exclusively for offices are not covered by this definition. 5 The Randstad region comprises the following areas: the Province of North-Holland (excluding Alkmaar and surrounding area and the northern part of North-Holland) and the Provinces of South-Holland and Utrecht. We refer to Rietveld and Wagtendonk (2004) for more details about regional definitions. 6 The examined area originally comprised 1,718 industrial sites. Information on the 'type of industrial site' is only available for 1,201 sites. We eliminated from the sample those houses that are closest to an industrial site but for which no information on the type of industrial site is available. 7 An industrial site is defined as 'a location which the land-use plans deem suitable for activities in the branches of commerce, manufacturing, commercial services, industry, and whose original design is larger than one hectare'. 8 Heavy-industry sites are industrial sites on which it is intended to establish highly undesirable facilities in terms of environmental nuisance (e.g. landfills, demolition dumps, waste sites, hazardous manufacturing facilities, etc.). Sea-harbours comprise large-scale sites featuring freight 10 These data sets have been provided by SPINLab, VU University Amsterdam.

11 Rents are controlled in the Netherlands, implying that their values are determined by a restricted system of points that highly disregards neighbourhood characteristics. We therefore do not take into account rented housing in our analysis.

12 Gross area is defined as the total area designated as the industrial site, including the area which is used for infrastructure, water, green space and other forms of public open space.

13 Details are available on request.

14 Our results may be biased due to a possibly negative correlation between distance to the industrial sites and distance to, for example, public goods provided in the city centre. This problem becomes more severe if many industrial sites are located in the urban fringe. This bias is likely to be limited in our case because (i) our sample comprises both inner-city industrial sites and fringe sites (e.g. greenfield sites); and (ii) we control in our empirical analysis for a range of characteristics of city-centres that may positively affect house prices, thus reducing the bias due to an omitted variable (viz. distance to 'goods' typically provided in city centres such as railway stations and employment). The estimated coefficients are consistent with the general findings, regarding sign as well as statistical significance of the estimated effects. Details are available on request. 16 The representative property is defined as the hypothetical property for which all explanatory variables (viz. attributes of the property), except for the distance to the industrial site, are set at their respective means. 17 The adjusted R 2 of both models is 0.774. The Akaike's Information Criterion (AIC) for the respective models equals -0.251 for the piecewise model, and -0.250 for the logistic model. The model with a lower AIC is typically preferred. 18 The estimation results of the other models which are related to the interaction between site size and distance are available on request. 19 Sampling along the spatial dimensions concerned creates data sets consisting of the following number of observations: <500: N=27,711; <1,000: N=50,660; <1,500: N=62,485; <2,000: N=67,600. The estimation results related to this sensitivity analysis are available on request. 20 Sampling along the regional dimensions concerned creates data sets consisting of the following number of observations: Randstad: N=51,689; North-Brabant: N=18,995.

21 This has been confirmed by running an alternative regression (OLS) using the natural logarithm of distance. The regression yields statistically significant estimates of the log of distance (at the 1 per cent significance level). Estimation results are available on request. 22 The additional models comprise four basic regression runs per region for different compositions of the samples: a sample with only small sites (<35 ha.), a sample with only large

  of the various externalities

  negative externalities, provides us with relevant background with regard to the impact of negative externalities originating from industrial sites, to which we now turn in the remainder of this paper.

Fig

  a transaction price exceeding 1 million euros. Furthermore, the upper and lower 0.5 per cent of the transaction values of the remaining observations were excluded (for a similar approach, see

  of describing the hedonic price function is as follows:

  OLS). White's heteroskedastic consistent covariance matrix is used to correct the estimated errors for unknown forms of heteroskedasticity.

  hypothesized to result from increases in floor area and housing volume. Increases in the age of the dwelling are hypothesized to cause a decline in house values. The price effect associated with the style of housing (i.e. detached, semi-detached, terraced, or apartment) is uncertain, given that the model controls for floor area and volume. Specific assets of a house, such as the presence of central heating, garage and garden, are expected to have a positive price effect. Neighbourhood measures associated with status, such as ethnical composition and population density, are expected to influence house prices negatively, as has been shown by, amongst others,Rouwendal and van der Straaten (2008). Considering the distance to jobs, we hypothesize a negative effect on house prices. Increased remoteness of households to areas of employment increases the costs of commuting. The associated expenditures will be capitalized into property values. FollowingDebrezion et al. (2006), we suppose that the effect of increasing distance to highway exits and railway stations on house prices is negative. Increased proximity causes positive effects in terms of accessibility which are assumed to exceed the negative effects, such as inherent traffic nuisance. Since the Randstad is the economic core region of the Netherlands, dwellings located in this region are hypothesized to sell at a higher price than dwellings in North-Brabant. The variables which are associated with the perceived impact proceeding from present industrial sites on house prices, e.g. the size of the industrial site, and heavy sites compared with regular sites, are hypothesized to affect house prices negatively.

  figure illustrates the value of the representative property 16 as a function of the distance-to-site

  Equation 6 the point of inflection (D j * ) can be derived. It appears that up to distance of 1,093 metres, the house prices are increasing at an increasing rate, whereas the house prices are increasing at a decreasing rate beyond this distance. We have depicted this relationship graphically in Fig.3. It illustrates the value of the representative property given a change in the distance-to-site variable, holding the other variables constant.

  paribus. This effect is illustrated graphically in Fig.4. We have depicted the price gradients of representative properties whose nearest industrial sites have a gross area of 1

  the characteristics of the logistic specification for the partial relationship between house prices and distance to the closest industrial sit. We start from the basic function:

  j < ∞, F(D j )is an increasing concave function of D j , if 0 of industrial sites have been defined: 'heavy-industry', 'sea-harbour',

  shipping activities. Miscellaneous sites are commonly seen as regular industrial sites which include a large variety of activities (ranging from small to medium polluting activities), on the condition that these sites may not be categorized as high-tech or transport. High-tech sites are sites which are developed for high-tech production activities and R&D-activities. Transport is characterized by a dominant presence of logistics and wholesale activities.9 NVM real-estate agents deal with approximately 70 per cent of all property transactions in the Netherlands.

  impact of the age of the dwelling on house prices, alternative models have been estimated by applying a linear and a quadratic specification for the year of the transaction.

Fig. 1 .Fig. 3 .

 13 Fig. 1. Distribution of industrial sites in the Randstad and North-Brabant, 2005

Fig. 5 .

 5 Fig. 4. Transaction price gradient functions for various different site sizes

TABLE 4

 4

	AROUND HERE >

  Netherlands Institute for Spatial Research. The sample size is 70,864 observations.

		APPENDIX A nearest railway station (in metres)
	which a total of 100,000 jobs can be reached This Appendix contains definitions, sources and descriptive statistics for the variables used in the Job accessibility Minimum distance (circle radius) within RPB/LS 8,492.26 4,511.54
		(in metres)
	empirical analysis. North-Brabant	located in the Province of North-Brabant Dummy variable: equals one if the house is	NVM	0.27	0.44
	Variable Industrial site characteristics Description Price Transaction price in the year 2005 in euros boundary of the nearest industrial site (in Distance to industrial site Straight-line distance from the house to the	Source NVM IBIS	Mean 254,522.33 784.39	Standard Deviation 141,377.12 606.72
	o r F o r F o r F o r F o r metres) characteristics Structural Floor area Size of living area of the house (m 2 ) Volume Volume of the house (m 3 ) Gross area Gross area of the nearest industrial site (in hectares) F Regular industrial site Dummy variable: equals 1 if the nearest industrial site concerns a miscellaneous or o high-tech site r Heavy industrial site Dummy variable: equals 1 if the nearest	NVM NVM IBIS IBIS IBIS	120.24 353.28 34.02 0.93 0.07	49.51 220.34 58.45 0.27 0.27
	P e e r P e e r P e e r P e e r P e e r Dummy variable: equals 1 if the house is detached Dummy variable: equals 1 if the house is semi-detached Dummy variable: equals 1 if the house is a terraced house Dummy variable: equals 1 if the house is an apartment industrial site concerns a heavy industry site, sea harbour or transport site P Notes: The abbreviations stand for: CBS -Statistics Netherlands; IBIS -Dutch Industrial Sites Database; LS -Land Detached NVM 0.08 0.27 Semi-detached NVM 0.10 0.31 Terraced NVM 0.46 0.50 Apartment NVM 0.36 0.48 e Use Scanner; NS -Dutch Railways; NVM -Dutch Association of Real Estate Agents; NWB -National Road e r Database; RPB -
	Before 1906 1906-1930 1931-1944 1945-1959 1960-1970 1971-1980	R e v i e w R e v i e w R e v i e w R e v i e w R e v i e w Dummy variable: equals 1 if the house was built before 1906 NVM Dummy variable: equals 1 if the house was built in the period 1906-1930 NVM Dummy variable: equals 1 if the house was built in the period 1931-1944 NVM Dummy variable: equals 1 if the house was built in the period 1945-1959 NVM Dummy variable: equals 1 if the house was built in the period 1960-1970 NVM Dummy variable: equals 1 if the house was built in the period 1971-1980 NVM R e v i e w	0.06 0.14 0.09 0.08 0.15 0.15	0.24 0.34 0.28 0.26 0.36 0.36
	1981-1990	Dummy variable: equals 1 if the house has	NVM	0.14	0.35
	After 1990 Central heating Garage Garden	been built in the period 1981-1990 Dummy variable: equals 1 if the house was built after 1990 Dummy variable: equals 1 if the house has central heating Dummy variable: equals 1 if the house has a garage Dummy variable: equals 1 if the house has a	O n l y O n l y O n l y O n l y O n l y NVM 0.20 NVM 0.92 O n NVM 0.20 NVM 0.56 l y	0.40 0.27 0.40 0.50
		garden
	Neighbourhood characteristics
	Ethnical minorities	Fraction of inhabitants of non-western origin	CBS	0.12	0.11
		in the ZIP-code area (4-digit) of the house
	Population-density	Number inhabitants per km 2 in the postcode	CBS	5,361.07	3,935.07
		area (4-digit) of the house
	Distance to highway exit	Distance, by road, from the house to the	NWB	3,993.81	2,548.18
		nearest highway exit (in metres)
	Distance to railway station Straight-line distance from the house to the NS	3,142.00	3,279.79
		29 30

Table 1 .

 1 >35 ha.), and samples with only heavy and non-heavy sites, respectively. The estimation results are available on request.23 The estimation results are available on request. Estimation results of the hedonic price function for the Randstad and North-Brabant in 2005 using a piecewise specification of distance Notes: The equation also contains month of sale (full estimation results are available on request); White tvalues are given in parentheses;

	sites (
	F o
	r
	P
	e e r
	R e v i e w
	O n
	l y
	35

*** Significant at the 1% level; * Significant at the 10% level.

Table 2 .

 2 Estimation results of the hedonic price function for the Randstad and North-Brabant in 2005 using a logistic specification of distance Notes: Only the estimation results referring to the effect of distance are reported (full estimation results are available on request); White t-values are given in parentheses;*** Significant at the 1% level.

	Variable

http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cres Email: regional.studies@fm.ru.nl

Table 3 .

 3 Estimation results of the hedonic price function for the Randstad and North-Brabant in 2005, using a logistic specification of distance: the interaction effect between distance and industrial site size Notes: Only the estimation results referring to the (interaction) effects of distance are reported (full estimation results are available on request); White t-values are given in parentheses;

	Variable

*** Significant at the 1% level;

** Significant at the 5% level.

Page 40 of 46 http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cres Email: regional.studies@fm.ru.nl

Table 4 .

 4 Estimation results of the hedonic price function for the Randstad and North-Brabant in 2005, including municipality dummies Notes: Only the estimation results referring to the effect of distance are reported (full estimation results are available on request); White t-values are given in parentheses; *** Significant at the 1% level.

	Variable

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http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cres Email: regional.studies@fm.ru.nlRegional Studies

Acknowledgements -This research has been funded by the BSIK-programme 'Vernieuwend Ruimtegebruik'. The authors gratefully acknowledge the Dutch Association of Real Estate Agents (NVM) for providing the data on residential property values. They are grateful to Erhan Demirel, Laura de Dominicis, Erik Louw, Ioulia Ossokina, Cees-Jan Pen, Piet Rietveld, Willemijn van der Straaten, and two anonymous reviewers of this journal for their useful comments. The authors also would like to thank Chris Jacobs for research assistance. The usual disclaimer applies.

O18 -Regional, Urban, and Rural Analyses < O1 -Economic Development < O -Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth, R30 -General < R3 -Production Analysis and Firm Location < R -Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics, R52 -Land Use and Other Regulations < R5 -Regional Government Analysis < R -Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics


J L Borges

Humberto Núñez-Faraco

La dimensión afectiva en la poesía juvenil de

Keywords: carnal love, ideal love, solitude, disenchantment

This article traces the development of Jorge Luis Borges's early love poetry, from the lyrical expression of the late 1910s to the bleak outlook of the early 1930s. Although Borges is not considered primarily a love poet, he did explore love and eroticism in his youthful verse. However, his treatment of the subject betrays an existential disenchantment that ended in failure and solitude.

Ahora bien, al hablar de lo afectivo en la poesía juvenil de Borges conviene abordar el tema desde una perspectiva amplia, ya que dicho campo no se encuentra circunscrito a lo puramente sentimental.

Como indica el título de su primer poemario, Fervor de Buenos Aires, la ciudad natal se convierte en eje principal de la experiencia emocional del poeta. En efecto, la mayoría de los poemas que lo conforman constituyen un vasto canto de amor a las calles y barrios antiguos de Buenos Aires, entendiendo por ‗amor' la manifestación del impulso afectivo en su forma más indeterminada. En el joven Borges, dicho impulso se materializa en la emoción que experimenta el poeta frente a su entorno:

Mi patria -Buenos Airesno es el dilatado mito geográfico que esas dos palabras señalan; es mi casa, los barrios amigables, y juntamente con estas calles y retiros, que son querida devoción de mi tiempo, lo que en ellas supe de amor, de pena y de dudas. 1 Así pues, el tema del amor está ligado a un ámbito de mayor alcance: el paisaje, el tiempo, las calles y suburbios por los que caminó el poeta, hacen todos parte de una misma experiencia poéticoexistencial:

Que nadie se anime a escribir suburbio sin haber caminoteado largamente por sus veredas altas; sin haberlo deseado y padecido como a una novia; sin haber sentido sus tapias, sus campitos, sus lunas a la vuelta de un almacén, como una generosidad. 2 El amor pasional en cuanto tal irrumpe en la poesía de Borges con un cierto toque melancólico.

Dicho Eros encarna, más que nada, el vigor de una aventura espiritual que resiste la tentación de lo meramente carnal. Hay en los poemas de Fervor de Buenos Aires un impulso ideal que anhela llegar a la contemplación de la belleza pura y que sitúa a la amada más allá del egoísmo posesivo del amante. 2 ‗Profesión de fe literaria ', en Borges 1926: 153. Cfr. De Mora Valcárcel 1999: 22-24; id. 2002: 39-51; Caracciolo Trejo 1977: 561-73. nueva' ([III], versos 1-4); ‗Sobrevive a la tarde | la blancura gloriosa de tu carne' ([IV], versos 9-10; el subrayado es mío). En estos versos, la belleza angelical de la amada es sentida como una fuente de felicidad que engendra vida y esperanza. Es así como el impulso amoroso se trueca en contemplación de la belleza pura:

Como viandante que recorre la costa maravillado de la muchedumbre del mar, albriciado de luz y pródigo espacio o como quien escucha y torna a escuchar un acorde cuya vehemencia le socava el alma deseosa, yo fuí el espectador de tu hermosura a lo largo de una sumisa jornada.

(‗Trofeo', versos 1-7)

A pesar del rapto místico de los versos anteriores -los términos ‗luz', ‗alma', ‗espectador' y ‗hermosura' son un lugar común en la poesía visionaria -, la contemplación de la amada tiende a evocar un instante pretérito, ya disociado el presente de un pasado feliz y venturoso. Alejada de la dicha inicial, la imagen del recuerdo se corroe en la memoria. Atormentado por el deseo insatisfecho, escribe en ‗Ausencia': ‗Habré de levantar la vida inmensa | que aún ahora es tu espejo: | piedra por piedra habré de reconstruírla' (versos 1-3). En otro lugar dirá: ‗Definitiva como una estatua | entristecerá tu ausencia otros campos ' (‗Despedida', versos 15-16).

Es quizá en el segundo poemario, Luna de enfrente, donde encontramos la expresión más ferviente del poeta en su anhelo por alcanzar la esencia trascendente de la amada, quiena semejanza de la tradición místico-amorosa medievales elevada al rango de mujer angelical:

Ni la intimidad de tu frente clara como una fiesta Ni la privanza de tu cuerpo, aun misterioso y tácito y de niña [,] Ni la sucesión de tu vida situándose en palabras o acallamiento Serán favor tan persuasivo de ideas Como el mirar tu sueño implicado En la vigilia de mis ávidos brazos.

Virgen milagrosamente otra vez por la virtud absolutoria del sueño, Quieta y resplandeciente como una dicha en la selección del recuerdo Me darás esa orilla de tu vida que tú misma no tienes. La tensión emocional del poema se establece entre dos polos existenciales: la dimensión temporal y finita de la existencia humana (‗la sucesión de tu vida'), y un conjetural estado transcendente de vida eterna (‗Arrojado a quietud', ‗desbaratada la ficción del tiempo'), que prefigura el éxtasis místico del cuento ‗El Aleph', en donde, paradójicamente, se invierte la naturaleza angelical de la mujer amada. 4 No obstante, a pesar del lirismo amoroso de la escena, los versos finales anuncian la irremediable soledad afectiva del poeta. La revelación epifánica no ha traído consigo una plenitud intelectiva.

Tampoco ha sido portadora de un contenido emocional que compense el vacío afectivo del poeta. Si bien el poema descarta la posibilidad de alcanzar la dicha a través de lo puramente carnal, el paso de lo material a lo ideal tan sólo sirve para corroborar la distancia primordial que separa al poeta de su amada (‗sin el amor, sin mí'). 5 La imposibilidad de crear un vínculo ontológico-existencial a través del amor es característica de la producción poética del primer Borges. En efecto, lo que distingue a sus poemas es un sentimiento profundo de ausencia e infelicidad, como atestiguan los siguientes versos de Fervor de Buenos Aires: En los poemas anteriores el elemento sexual en cuanto tal está ausente. El amor aparece en ellos únicamente como expresión del sentimiento interior: se trata de una experiencia espiritual que surge de la intensidad afectiva del poeta y que lucha por romper las barreras ontológicas que lo separan de la amada. Sin embargo, la preocupación por lo carnal aparece claramente delineada en el poema ‗Llamarada', que Borges excluyó de las ediciones posteriores que se hicieron de su obra poética. 7 El poema se inicia con la descripción de un paraje marino, que a su vez es proyección del estado existencial del poeta-caminante: Bajo la dolorida sombra del cieloante los austeros mástiles que se alzan sobre las aguas sin ruidoy las luces pobres del puerto que en amplia inmóvil procesión, anilladas de rojo en la penumbra lo ciñen,una llamarada ondula en el aire pardo y pesado a ras de la tierraen el derrumbamiento de las cosas visibles,en la angustiosa espera de la tormenta cercana. 8 A través de la personificación, la llama se convierte en el núcleo emocional del poema: Yo, latente bajo todas las máscaras,nunca apagada y eternamente acechando [...] encarno la grande fatiga, la sed de no ser de todo cuanto en esta tierra poluta vibra, y sufriendo vive.

A medida que avanza el poema descubrimos que en él se dramatiza la fuerza de la pasión erótica que arrastra al hombre a su perdición:

Te siento y paso. -Sigo a lo largo de la tarde lentay medito el significado de tu roja palabray veo que en verdad eres símbolode nosotros que inevitablemente sufrimosuncidos al gris yugo del díao al enjoyado yugo de la nochey ansiamos como tú la alta serenidad y el desdén claro de la felina noche... 7 ‗Llamarada' fue redactado durante la primera estancia de Borges en España, donde fue publicado inicialmente bajo el título ‗La llama'; véase Borges 1997: 36. En su estudio sobre la poesía temprana de Borges, Carlos García (2000: 37) percibe en el poema la influencia de los expresionistas alemanes que el autor leyó en Ginebra.

Nótese cómo el lenguaje metafórico del poema remite al erotismo de ‗Llamarada' (‗yugo', ‗llama', ‗tiembla'), si bien Borges substituye la imagen de la cruz (implícita en la metáfora de la crucifixión) por el de la ‗estrella', que ya había utilizado en ‗Himno del mar'. 12 No obstante, la connotación destructiva del amor pasionaltan claramente delineada en ‗Llamarada'es reemplazada aquí por una unívoca afirmación del goce y el deseo carnales. Esta revaluación de la plenitud sexual es corroborada en una breve composición en prosa publicada por Borges poco tiempo después, en la que afirma: ‗[El placer] es lo único esencial [...] que nadie logrará jamás encerrar en una urdimbre del arte.'13 Sin embargo, aún más importante que el reconocimiento de Eros como fuerza vital única, es su convicción de la falsedad del erotismo al ser convertido en mercancía. En este sentido, su condenación de la prostitución como engaño y mentira es inequivoca: Aquí [en el lupanar] fracasan todas las religiones. La concepción judaica fracasa, ya que al árbol del Génesis lo han talado a golpes de falo y Adán y Eva se ven aquí reducidos a su actuación más lamentable de mercancía y comprador. La concepción hedónica fracasa, ya que al placer lo han mutilado, robándole las tiaras prestigiosas de la visión romántica y subrayado su tonalidad de fatalismo duro. (ibid. 112) No quisiera insistir en los aspectos biográficos que hayan podido influír en dicho rechazo por parte de Borges. 14 Más interesante es señalar la tensión emocional que se proyecta en los poemas de ese período, particularmente entre la intensidad poético-existencial de su primer poemario, y el sentimiento de extrañeza y desilusión con que cierra la producción lírica de aquella década. Frente al itinerario poético de Fervor de Buenos Airesque ensalza la visión criolla de su Buenos Aires natal -, ‗El Paseo de Julio' (último poema de la colección Cuaderno San Martín) representa la antítesis de aquel proyecto literario. Si, por un lado, Fervor de Buenos Aires se aventura en el ámbito sagrado de la ciudad, tal como se indica en su prólogo: Mis versos quieren ensalzar la actual visión porteña, la sorpresa y la maravilla de los lugares que asumen mis caminatas. Semejante a los latinos, que al atravesar un soto murmuraban ‗Numen Inest'. Aquí se oculta la divinidad, habla mi verso para declarar el asombro de las calles endiosadas por la esperanza o el recuerdo. Sitio por donde discurrió nuestra vida, se introduce poco a poco en santuario.

‗El Paseo de Julio', por otro lado, revela su aspecto demoníaco y perverso: Barrio con lucidez de pesadilla al pie de los otros, tus espejos curvos denuncian el lado de la fealdad de las caras, tu noche calentada en lupanares pende de la ciudad. […] ¿Será porque el infierno es vacío que es espuria tu misma fauna de monstruos y la sirena prometida por ese cartel es muerta y de cera? […] Atrás de los paredones de mi suburbio, los duros carros rezarán con varas en alto a su imposible dios de hierro y de polvo, ¿pero qué dios, qué ídolo, qué veneración la tuya, Paseo de Julio? 15 En este poema Borges no sólo deja entrever su preocupación por la cuestión del mal y el libre albedrío (de hecho, la primera edición del poema en Cuaderno San Martín incluye una nota sobre la noción de ‗irrealidad' del infierno, en la que Borges parece seguir al pensador místico Emanuel Swedenborg), sino que, además, expresa su descontento por aquello que la modernización de Buenos Aires había traído consigo: masas de inmigrantes europeos (muchos de ellos paupérrimos) y el aumento desmedido de la ‗trata de blancas'. 16 En los poemarios que siguieron a Fervor de Buenos Aires en la década de los años veinte, Luna de enfrenteque ya hemos mencionadoy Cuaderno San Martín, se aprecia un gradual distanciamiento del poeta respecto al logro de la felicidad en el campo afectivo. Más aún, puede decirse que lo erótico pasa definitivamente a un segundo plano lírico y que en su lugar surge una clara preocupación por el tema de la muerte. Lo que se destaca en los poemas de amor de aquél período es un agudo sentimiento de insatisfacción, en el que tampoco deja de sentirse una frecuente nota melancólica. A modo de ejemplo, pueden citarse los siguientes versos: ‗Anda de estrella en estrella | un pájaro por el cielo. | Mi querer, de pena en pena' (‗Soleares');17 ‗Este lugar es semejante a la dicha; | I

[sic] yo no soy feliz' (‗Por los viales de Nîmes', ibid., versos 12-13); ‗Pobre de amor yo fuí' (‗Casi juicio final', ibid., verso 16); ‗Son forasteros en mi carne los besos y único el viento es abrazador de mi tronco. | Ya no sabe amor de mi sombra' (‗La vuelta a Buenos Aires', ibid., versos 12-13); ‗Vida sin tarea de amor y voz en que el amor está prometiendo, | qué decir de esa vida sino que espera | y que somos los atentos a su esperanza | y de esa voz, sino que viene del porvenir.' 18 A pesar del llamado a la esperanza, el tema del amor no reaparecerá de forma triunfal en la poesía de Borges. El hecho es que Cuaderno San Martín sella el final de su producción poética, actividad que, a excepción de un puñado de poemas, se verá interrumpida por cerca de tres décadas. Junto con el desengaño sentimental que se observa en esta época, en los años venideros también se desvanecerá el sueño literario que inicialmente animó su fervor patrio. Al llegar la década de los cuarenta, las calles que alguna vez fueron ‗querida devoción' de su tiempo tan sólo recuerdan el vano eco de un pasado fenecido:

El tiempo que a los hombres Trae el amor o el oro, a mí apenas me deja 16 Para un estudio del problema de la prostitución en aquella época, véase Guy 1991. Para la noción de la ‗irrealidad' del infierno en Borges, véase el ensayo ‗La duración del infierno ' (1929), en Borges 1989 I: 235-3; id. 1989 I: 280-82; id. 1979: 52; id. 1998ª: 242-48. Cfr. Swedenborg 1993: 86, 122-25. Esta rosa apagada, esta vana madeja De calles que repiten los pretéritos nombres De mi sangre. 19 Junto con los anteriores versos, en 1943 Borges añadió a la segunda edición de su obra poética dos poemas de amorescritos en lengua inglesa nueve años antesque pueden ser considerados como su último manifiesto romántico. Sin embargo, en ellos se anticipan algunos de los aspectos emocionales que surgirán en su obra de madurez. El primer poema se inicia con una atmósfera de irrealidad y pesadilla. Como quien emerge de un infierno existencial, el poeta declara haber sobrevivido al espejismo de los placeres nocturnos. A pesar de haber pasado una velada bohemia en compañía de algunos amigos, los recuerdos de esa noche no le han dejado más que el amargo sabor del desconsuelo. Por medio de un lenguaje metafórico cargado de significado moral, la noche se transforma en testigo de lo efímero y engañoso de la existencia humana:

The useless dawn finds me in a deserted street-corner; I have outlived the night.

Nights are proud waves: darkblue [sic] topheavy [sic] waves laden with all hues of deep spoil, laden with things unlikely and desirable.

Nights have a habit of mysterious gifts and refusals, of things half given away, half withheld, of joys with a dark hemisphere. [...] The surge, that night, left me the customary shreds and odd ends: some hated friends to chat with, music for dreams, and the smoking of bitter ashes. The things my hungry heart has no use for.

The big wave brought you.

Words, any words, your laughter; and you so lazily and incessantly beautiful. We talked and you have forgotten the words.

The shattering dawn finds me in a deserted street of my city.

Your profile turned away, the sounds that go to make your name, the lilt of your laughter: these are illustrious toys you have left me. [...] Your dark rich life... 19 ‗La noche cíclica ' (1940), en Borges 1989 II: 241. Véase Meneses 1987: 45-52; id., 1978: 33-36. I must get at you, somehow: I put away those illustrious toys you have left me, I want your hidden look, your real smilethat lonely, mocking smile your cool mirror knows. 20 Como puede verse, el tono del poema alude inmediatamente a la problemática sexual ya tratada en ‗El Paseo de Julio', excepto que ahora es el poeta mismo quien protagoniza el drama lírico. Además, si se recuerda el verso final del poema ‗Llamarada', se observará la presencia de uno de los términos clave empleados allí para designar el estado de confusión existencial del ser humano. Me refiero a la expresión ‗girones' (‗Y la llama se hunde en el gran crepúsculo enfermoque en girones desgarran los grises vientos'), que aquí corresponde a la palabra inglesa ‗shreds' (‗The surge, that night, left me the customary shreds and odd ends', verso 4). Aquellos ‗jirones y retazos disjuntos'metáfora del deseo no satisfechocontrastan con el ideal de vida plena al que aspira el poeta. 21 Podría decirse, entonces, que el poema corrobora la concepción del amor carnal como engaño y decepción mantenida por Borges en su juventud. No obstante, la segunda mitad del poema contiene una sorprendente revelación. Aferrada a los recuerdos de aquella noche, se perfila tenuemente la imagen de una mujer. Aunque su belleza aún lo hechiza, el poeta sabe que ella ya lo ha olvidado. Todo lo que queda de aquel encuentro son los vanos fragmentos de un instante inasible. Al igual que en el poema ‗Antelación de amor', lo que el poeta busca es trascender el mundo apariencial a fin de capturar la esencia oculta de aquel ser deseado e inalcanzable. Aún así, la ambigüedad del poema consiste en la tensión semántica que rodea a la mujer. Si, de una parte, su belleza parece esconder un elemento falso y decididamente hermético (‗Your dark rich life', ‗your hidden look', ‗that lonely, mocking smile your cool mirror knows'), de otra parte la alusión a la Beatriz del Danteque se insinúa sutílmente en las líneas finales del poema -constituye su propia antítesis. Compárese el verso de Borges: ‗Your profile turned away, the sounds that go to make your name, the lilt of your laughter', con las palabras del peregrino al verse separado de su beatífica guía en el cielo Empíreo: 20 ‗Prose poems for I. J.' (1934) = ‗Two English Poems' en ediciones posteriores; en Borges 1989 II: 239 (el subrayado es mío). 21 Cfr. ‗Casa Elena': ‗En los arrabales del mundo el amanecer monstruoso y endeble ronda como una falsedad' (Borges 1997: 113).

Al igual que en el cuento ‗El Aleph'en el que la amada difunta encarna elementos afines a los ya expuestos -, el primero de los poemas en lengua inglesa titubea entre el elogio y la injuria. ¿Quien pudo ser la mujer a quien Borges identifica de manera tan evasiva? Que yo sepa, la crítica borgeana no ha logrado dar con el misterio que encierran las iniciales I. J., que vuelven a aparecer en la dedicatoria a la primera edición de la colección de cuentos Historia universal de la infamia (1935). 26 No obstante, si bien es cierto que el primer poema presenta un aspecto ambiguo con respecto a la figura femenina, el segundo adquiere un tono nostálgico y sentimental que lo acerca a los poemas de amor de la década anterior (considérese, por ejemplo, el poema ‗Antelación de amor'). Por su carácter derrotista y confesional, esta segunda composición líricaen la que el poeta ofrece lo más intimo de su serseñala el fin del amor romántico en la poesía de Borges: I offer you that kernel of myself that I have saved, somehowthe central heart that deals not in words, traffics not with dreams and is untouched by time, by joy, by adversities. [...] I can give you my loneliness, my darkness, the hunger of my heart; I am trying to bribe you with uncertainty, with danger, with defeat. (Borges 1989 II: 240) Al igual que sus poemas de juventud, ‗Prose poems for I. J.' revela la urgencia afectiva del poeta por traspasar lo meramente contigente de la existencia humana a fin de alcanzar un estado absoluto en unión con el ser amado. 27 Simultáneamente, la imposibildad de su realización debió forzarle a olvidar 26 Es curioso que en ediciones posteriores Borges haya substituído en dos ocasiones el nombre del presunto destinatario; véase Devoto 1964: 285, nota 1; Rodríguez Monegal 1978: 272-73; Canto 1989: 157; Teitelboim 1996: 144-46. 27 Dentro de la tradición judeo-cristiana, el problema de la condición humana se relaciona con el mito de la expulsión del hombre del Jardín del Edén y la pérdida radical de la Gracia divina. El interés de Borges por el tema es evidente, ya que en su primera colección en verso incorporó un poema inspirado en el episodio bíblico (véase ‗El jardín botánico', que fue excluído de las ediciones posteriores de En resumen, puede decirse que el interés de Borges por temas filosóficos o literarios oculta una problemática emocional que el autor prefirió no abordar en sus escritos. Dicha actitud es intencional y revela la existencia de una complejidad psicológica que se manifiesta a partir de su adolescencia. En sus mejores momentos líricos, el poeta llega a celebrar ese don de la vida que se da en la contemplación de la amada y en la dicha pasajera del encuentro amoroso. Sin embargo, aquel optimismo se ve frecuentemente oscurecido por el presentimiento de la separación, el olvido y la derrota. El miedo ante el fracaso y la desilusión, cuando no el rechazo a lo carnal, lo llevan a obliterar toda posibilidad de erotismo que no implique algo dañino o perverso. De ahí el tono paródico de sus referencias literarias así como el carácter autobiográfico que le imprime a su obra, proyección que evidentemente cumple una catarsis emocional de gran importancia en su vida personal. 30 Es justamente esta tensión de opuestos lo que caracteriza la evolución del tema del amor en su escritura, tratamiento que se inicia con la idealización hiperbólica de la mujer amada y termina en el delirio persecutorio, la burla y el sarcasmo.

Obras citadas

Borges, Jorge Luis (1923). Fervor de Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires: Serrantes).

-- (1925). Inquisiciones (Buenos Aires: Proa). 29 Borges 1989 II: 485. Refiriéndose al poema, Borges declaró: ‗Hay un poema, creo que se llama -El amenazado‖, que taché de mis libros porque era demasiado íntimo. [...] La poesía necesita algo fabuloso, algo ambiguo, y le faltaba a ese poema. Era una especie de interjección que no podía permitirme en público' (citado en Woscoboinik 1991: 192).

  Así, por ejemplo, en la secuencia intitulada ‗Sábados', escribe: ‗Siempre la multitud de tu hermosura | en claro esparcimiento sobre mi alma' ([I], versos 13-14); y más adelante: ‗A despecho de tu desamor | tu hermosura | prodiga su milagro por el tiempo. Está en tí la ventura | como la primavera en la hoja 1 Borges 1923: [sin paginación]. Véase también el poema ‗Buenos Aires', en Borges 1925: 79-83.

  Arrojado a quietud, Divisaré esa playa última de tu ser Y te veré por vez primera quizás, Como Dios ha de verte, Desbaratada la ficción del Tiempo Sin el amor, sin mí. 3

  ‗Tu ausencia ciñe el alma | como cuerda que abarca una garganta' (‗Ausencia', versos 21-22); ‗Te traigo vanamente | mi corazón final para la fiesta' (‗Sábados', [II], versos 10-11); ‗En tí está la delicia | como está la crueldad en las espadas' (ibid., [III], versos 10-11); ‗Nuestras dos soledades en la sala severa | se buscan como ciegos [...] En nuestro amor no hay algazara, | hay una pena parecida al alma' (ibid., [IV], versos 5-6, 11-12); ‗Entre mi amor y yo han de levantarse | trescientas noches como trescientas paredes | y el mar será un milenio entre nosotros' (‗Despedida', versos 1-3). Aunque no falte en su poesía algún instante de plenitud, 6 la felicidad del poeta termina siendo efímera y engañosa: Y en gradual soledad al volver por la calle cuyos rostros aún te conocen, se apesadumbró mi dicha, pensando que de tan noble acopio de memorias perdurarían escasamente una o dos para ser decoro del alma en la inmortalidad de su andanza. (‗Trofeo', versos 11-16) A pesar de que la amada aún vive en el recuerdo, la voz del olvido irrumpe en el pensamiento como un fatal anuncio de soledad. Las horas se encargarán de consumir la dicha que el amor pudo alguna vez alcanzar: ‗El tiempo arrancará con dura mano | las calles enzarzadas en mi pecho. | No habrá sino recuerdos' (‗Despedida', versos 4-6).

Fervor

  de Buenos Aires). Una década más tarde Borges publicó un relato bajo el título ‗Renacen en el Siglo XV Adán y Eva' (véase Borges 1998: 123-30). Cfr. los poemas ‗Adam cast forth': ‗Y, sin embargo, es mucho haber amado, | Haber sido feliz, haber tocado | El viviente Jardín, siquiera un día' (Borges 1989 II: 312); ‗Inferno, V, 129': ‗Son Paolo y Francesca | y también la reina y su amante | y Me duele una mujer en todo el cuerpo. 29

‗Antelación de amor', en Borges 1925ª: 13.

Paoli 1977: 12-25.

Véase Caracciolo Trejo 1977: 566; Lima 1973: 409. Cfr. la referencia que hace Borges a Lucrecio en el ensayo ‗Historia de la eternidad', en Borges 1989 I: 364.

Pueden considerarse los siguientes versos en Fervor de Buenos Aires: ‗Atendido de amor y rica esperanza. [...] Paraje que arraigó una tradición de amor en el alma' (‗Villa Urquiza', versos 1, 14); ‗Nada importa que el alma | ande sola y desnuda como el viento | si el universo de un glorioso beso | aún abarca mi vida' (‗Forjadura', versos 12-15); ‗Benjuí de tu presencia | que iré quemando luego en el recuerdo | y miradas felices | de bordear tu vivir' (‗Sábados', [I], versos 1-4).

Borges 1923. Sigo el diseño tipográfico utilizado en esta edición.

La estrella como metáfora de la unión sexual reaparece en el poema ‗Los llanos' (1924): ‗la estrella caliente que trazan el varón y la mujer en juntándose', en Borges 1925ª: 12 (verso 18).

‗Casa Elena (hacia una estética del lupanar en España)', en Borges 1997: 112-13. Véase Meneses 1978: 23; Rodríguez Monegal 1978: 166.

Me refiero al supuesto encuentro con una prostituta en Ginebra en torno al año 1918. VéaseRodríguez Monegal 1978: 113, 349; Canto 1989: 114-17; Woscoboinik 1991: 144.

Borges 1929: 50, versos 13-15, 22-24, 31-33.

Borges 1925ª, octava estrofa.

‗A la doctrina de pasión de tu voz' (1927), en Borges

1928: 32, versos 15-18.

‗Ya habiendo escrito ese cuento [‗El Aleph'] es como si me hubiera matado por segunda vez, porque ya estoy libre de ella y estoy libre del recuerdo de ella. Quizás escribamos así como una suerte de catarsis, de purificación, uno quizá escribe los temas para olvidarlos'(Borges 1978: 75). Cfr.Rodríguez Monegal 1978: 186: ‗Sex is not explicitly presented in most of [Borges's] work because it is presented in a different manner: -weaving through dreams a sexual strife‖[...] This attitude reveals the method of his writing. Just as sex is woven in the texture of his dreams, so it is woven in the texture of the quotations he uses to mask his private voice.'