Urban Economics And Land Use In America

This is a work about the growth of American cities and their suburbs during the 20th century, about institutions and metropolitan governance, about real estate development and finance, about housing and the lack of it, and about the emergence and maybe the future debilitation of cities and suburbs.

As external forces increase the demand for land conversion, communities are increasingly open to policies that encourage conservation of farm and forest lands. This interest in conservation notwithstanding, the consequences of land-use policy and the drivers of land conversions are often unclear. One of the first books to deal exclusively with the economics of rural-urban sprawl, Economics and Contemporary Land-Use Policy explores the causes and consequences of rapidly accelerating land conversions in urban-fringe areas, as well as implications for effective policy responses. This book emphasizes the critical role of both spatial and economic-ecological interactions in contemporary land use, and the importance of a practical, policy-oriented perspective. Chapters illustrate an interaction of conceptual, theoretical, and empirical approaches to land-use policy and highlight advances in policy-oriented economics associated with the conservation and development of urban-fringe land. Issues addressed include (1) the appropriate role of economics in land-use policy, (2) forecasting and management of land conversion, (3) interactions among land use, property values, and local taxes, and (4) relationships among rural amenities, rural character, and urban-fringe land-use policy. Economics and Contemporary Land-Use Policy is a timely and relevant contribution to the land-use policy debate and will prove an essential reference for policymakers at the local, state, and federal levels. It will also be of interest to students, academics, and anyone with an interest in the practical application of economics to land-use issues.

This is a book about the reality of place in America, the events and influences that led to the America we recognize today. It is a book about the growth of American cities and their suburbs during the twentieth century, about institutions and metropolitan governance, about real estate development and finance, about housing and the lack of it, about the emergence and perhaps the eventual debilitation of cities and suburbs alike. Incorporating the thinking of visionary city planners and land use economists, the author presents a lucid primer on the economics of land, its development and usage, and on how things actually get done in the real estate industry.

Land use controls can affect the quality of the environment, the provision of public services, the distribution of income and wealth, the development of natural resources, and the growth of the national economy. The Economics of Zoning Laws is the first book to apply the modern economic theory of property rights to all major aspects of zoning. Zoning laws are neither irrational constrints on otherwise efficient markets nor disinterested attempts to correct market failure. Rather, zoning must be viewed as a collective property right, vested in local governments and administered by politicians who rationally repsond to their constituents and to developers as markets for development rights arise. The Economics of Zoning Laws develops the economic theories of property rights and public choice and applies them to three zoning controversies: the siting of a large industrial plant, the exclusionary zoning of the suburbs, and the constitutional protection of propery owners from excessive regulation. Economic and legal theory, William Fischel contends, suggest that payment of damages under the taking clause of the Constitution may provide the most effective remedy for excessive zoning regulations.

"Zoning has for a century enabled cities to chart their own course. It is a useful and popular institution, enabling homeowners to protect their main investment and provide safe neighborhoods. As home values have soared in recent years, however, this protection has accelerated to the degree that new housing development has become unreasonably difficult and costly. The widespread Not In My Backyard (NIMBY) syndrome is driven by voters’ excessive concern about their home values and creates barriers to growth that reach beyond individual communities. The barriers contribute to suburban sprawl, entrench income and racial segregation, retard regional immigration to the most productive cities, add to national wealth inequality, and slow the growth of the American economy. Some state, federal, and judicial interventions to control local zoning have done more harm than good. More effective approaches would moderate voters’ demand for local-land use regulation—by, for example, curtailing federal tax subsidies to owner-occupied housing"--Publisher's description.

The new Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics: Cities and Geography reviews, synthesizes and extends the key developments in urban and regional economics and their strong connection to other recent developments in modern economics. Of particular interest is the development of the new economic geography and its incorporation along with innovations in industrial organization, endogenous growth, network theory and applied econometrics into urban and regional economics. The chapters cover theoretical developments concerning the forces of agglomeration, the nature of neighborhoods and human capital externalities, the foundations of systems of cities, the development of local political institutions, regional agglomerations and regional growth. Such massive progress in understanding the theory behind urban and regional phenomenon is consistent with on-going progress in the field since the late 1960’s. What is unprecedented are the developments on the empirical side: the development of a wide body of knowledge concerning the nature of urban externalities, city size distributions, urban sprawl, urban and regional trade, and regional convergence, as well as a body of knowledge on specific regions of the world—Europe, Asia and North America, both current and historical. The Handbook is a key reference piece for anyone wishing to understand the developments in the field.

In the rapidly changing sphere of urban development, land is shown to provide the basic morphological structure of the city, but also the source of economic and social power and the key to planning through examples from around the world.