Unifying Urban Land Use and Land Value Theories

Abstract

The market analysis report that is submitted to the decision maker (see chapter 4) should include a descriptive, qualitative overview of the context the real estate project has to the existing and changing urban environment. To better accomplish this task, one should have knowledge of the general theory regarding the market processes that bring about land use and urban form. This chapter presents three relevant general theories of land use and land value. Together, these general theories provide a general qualitative understanding of how the existing urban environment came to be and allows the analyst to prognosticate the trajectory of change of urban land uses and land values. The first two of the general theories presented here arose out of an attempt to explain agricultural land values and land uses. Why should a discussion of the agronomy sector be included in a book on urban real estate analysis? First, all the general theories relevant to land values and land use, and their spatial distribution within a city, are part of an intellectual heritage that dates from general theories of agricultural land values and land use. Second, much of new urban development occurs at those suburban margins. To understand development at the suburban margins, there must be an understanding of the nonurban land uses and land values at those locations. The third general theory explains spatial equilibrium and its role in shaping urban land values and land uses. Two eighteenth-century theorists, David Ricardo and Johann Heinrich von Thünen, are credited for having created a vast and sometimes opposing literature on land valuation. Ricardo’s economic theory was based upon the relative productivity of sites. In contrast, von Thünen’s geographic theory was focused on the locational component of land values and land use. The juxtaposition of these two competing giants of land theory in many respects still differentiates economists and geographers even today. After the theories of Ricardo and von Thünen are presented, an overview of the consumption theory of land rent (CTLR) is provided. The CTLR is my general theory and methodology for evaluating urban housing land use, land values, and urban form (Thrall 1980, 1987, and see 1991).