Land Values and Parks in Urban Fringe Areas

Abstract

Y intent here is to comment on three or four things which I find of lMv some concern to the problems of the urban fringe. The first is to note something of the nature of the urban land market, particularly a basic role of market forces in determining land uses or lack of use. Following this is a related comment on the claim of agricultural production on resources in such areas, and a suggestion that there may be some social values associated with land uses which are important, but which are imperfectly reflected in the market. The last point concerns values for some such nonmarket uses of land, which may be useful in the allocation mechanisms in urban areas. There is considerable unhappiness with the present ragged nature of urban development. While documentation is poor, there are to be sure a number of well-recognized problems and costs associated with such expansion. The usual list includes wasted land, high cost and insufficient public services, high transportation costs, uneconomic rates of obsolescence, and others-created or aggravated by what has come to be the usual rapid and sprawling nature of urban growth. This uneven, discontinuous, hit-or-miss character of the growth is often cited as the chief deficiency of the urban structure. This is not to suggest that scatter is all bad; it may offer some offsetting advantages in certain cases.1 However, it seems that the problems related to this type of development are formidable, both in terms of social costs of uneconomic growth and in difficulty of dealing effectively with it. An examination of some aspects of land values as they relate or contribute to this pattern of urban growth is of some interest of itself, but further it is germane to other problems of land use in fringe areas. Given the process of urban growth, the scattered pattern of development or sprawl is just about what can be expected to evolve. Indeed, economists should be surprised if development did not proceed in this manner. And we might, therefore, become more aware of the effects of economic forces in the design of programs and policies dealing with the problems and the opportunities in the spread of urban areas. We have a number of devices such as zoning, public investments and loans, taxation, the power of eminent domain, and the public purchase of easements which have surely had an impact on the shape of expansion.