High Land Prices Research Articles

The Origins of the Langeberg Rebellion

In December 1896, barely a year after annexation by the Cape Colony, rebellion erupted in the former Crown Colony of British Bechuanaland. Joining forces in the Langeberg Mountains, Tlhaping and Tlharo resisted a large government force for nearly eight months. This paper examines the origins of the rebellion. Its first section provides a brief sketch of the rebellion. Then, much greater detail, the long-standing grievances of the Tlhaping and Tlharo are discussed. These seem to have arisen mainly out of competiton for land and the concomitants of white administration. While for the people the latter meant taxes, police and new laws, for the chiefs, the imposition of a new legal system together with the arrival of Christianity, meant a diminution of authority.In the third section, the white man's own mounting frustration and the activities of one farmer in particular are examined. The high price of land had precluded many former filibusters from purchasing land; annexation of the territory by the Cape seems to have stimulated them to encourage rebellion so that new lands might become available.The following section returns to the Tlhaping and Tlharo, and deals with new grievances and pressures which became acute immediately before the rebellion. These included acute distrust of the Cape Colonial goverment, further fears of loss of land, and anxiety concerning threats to their growing involvement in a market economy. Finally the consequences of a rinderpest epidemic coupled with dynastic politics appear to have tipped the scales in favour of rebellion.

URBANISATION AND IRRIGATION WATER USE

In accomplishing overall development projects within a metropolitan area, the existence of irrigation system which is prescribed as a historical inheritance cannot be ignored. Water requirement for new uses other than agriculture caused by rapid urbanisation is confronting a deep-rooted opposition in getting water from the existing irrigation system. This means that it is not only difficult to adjust technically, but also related closely to the complicated socioeconomic aspects of the farming people. This paper intends to study how remarkable changes have been taking place in the existing irrigation system through the impact of urbanisation, taking two areas located within the Hiroshima Metropolitan area. One is the area of the Yagi irrigation system, water of which supplied from the Ota River and the other is an area located downstream from Haji Dam on the Eno River. Consideration was rendered based on a field survey on these two areas with the following results. In the area of the Yagi irrigation system which is undergoing rapid urbanisation, the agricultural function of irrigation is gradually breaking down, starting from the negotiation with the authorities for the possible use of water than agriculture to the use for urban purposes as well as converting rice-fields to urban land. The fact that water use for agriculture is gradually reducing is explained by the attitude of farmers toward urbanisation. They possess their fragmented fields and want to maintain some of them as rice-fields for a long time in small patches in the urbanized land, depending upon part-time farming on one side, and they cultivate crops on their fields expecting only higher land prices. Converting rice-fields to housing and factory sites has the direct and most important relation to the irrigation system. Areal reduction of rice-fields does necessarily cause a decrease in the total amount of irrigation water. As a result of this, the maintenance cost of irrigation system, for which tax is collected by acreage of rice-field, decreases on one side and the expansion of housing and factory sites increases water pallution on the other. Maintenance of the irrigation system has become very difficult. It will be expected that irrigation canals will be used as drains or sewages in the urbanized area in due course. Conversion of irrigation canals to drains is likely to give rise ill drainage in the downstream area on account of the irrigation facilities do not fit draining function. It is important to examine such a problem from the standpoint of city planning. In the area downstream from the Haji Dam located on a fringe of the urbanized area, new requirement for water use has come into being between agricultural and urban uses. As the urbanisation of Hiroshima expanded to a great extent and the increasing demand for water is not satisfied by the supply of stream water of the Ota River, another water resource must be exploited for future water supply, and the Eno River, a different river system, has come into the scene. There developed a traditional water right by which customary irrigation methods are practiced in this area ineffectively. This is a hindrance for the creation of a higher productive organisation. Accordingly, it is necessary to keep it in mind that a new order in the distribution of water is to be created by means of readjustment of water uses in a large area such as a metropolitan area, assuming that the basic conditions in which “betterment of agricultural basement” and “the integrated use of water between agricultural and urban uses” are inevitable.

Feeding Dairy Cows in Drylot

Dairy cattle in southern California are fed almost exclusively in drylot. Proximity to the Los Angeles metropolitan area. and subsequent high land prices and taxes have been a major reason for this. Dairymen cannot afford to grow dairy feeds on land which can be used either for higher-value crops or, in some cases, for subdivision purposes. Consequently, ahnost all feeds, both forages and concentrates, used for dairy cattle in southern California are produced elsewhere and shipped into the area for feeding in drylot. Even in more rural areas of California drylot feeding predominates, and for many reasons. Land prices and taxes, although not so high as in the Los Angeles area, are still high for agricultural purposes. When land has been suitable, many former pastures have been converted to alfalfa hay, corn, cotton, or other higher-value crops because of the economic necessity to obtain higher returns per acre.

Undeveloped Land Prices During Urbanization: A Micro-Empirical Study Over Time

IN most of the world's urban centers, the price of land has been rising at a rapid rate. In some cases the increases observed have been phenomenal indeed increases of 5 to 7 times in 17 to 20 years, in Israel for example 1but even in more settled areas the increase in the price of land appears to have been considerably greater than the rise in prices generally or in construction. While builders tend to adjust to higher land prices by more intensive land use, such as high-rise buildings, there is evidence that the land component of housing costs is increasing. Considerations of housing policy and equity have focused attention on the growth of land prices here and abroad.2 The relevance of land prices to public investment decisions is also being increasingly recognized. New roads and rapid transit, sewer and water lines, and urban renewal projects yield sizeable benefits (or, in some instances, costs) to adjacent properties. The capitalization of these externalities in land values is a measure of the benefits obtained.3 Finally, land is one of the principal forms of assets held in the economy and one, moreover, in which large speculative gains have sometimes been made. So far the interrelationships between land asset values and the macro variables of the economy have not been closely analyzed. Theory suggests the possibility of effects of the interest rate and certain macro variables on land prices and in turn there may be effects in the opposite direction. Over time, the recorded prices of land transactions reflect an intermingling of various influences. The capitalization of expected returns implies an underlying time path for land prices given expectations and interest rates. Changes in the economy at large -by way of interest rates, business conditions generally and in the real estate market, and construction activity influence land prices. Along with these factors over time, there are the effects of the qualitative characteristics of the land being sold, which are not likely to remain fixed as the development of an urban area proceeds. These effects must be considered simultaneously. This study is an attempt to disentangle the various influences affecting the price of vacant land with particular emphasis on the movement of prices over time. The empirical analysis is based on a body of micro-data, consisting of 1111 land transactions in Northeast Philadelphia over the perod 19451962, together with selected characteristics of the parcels sold at the time of the transactions. These data were collected for an extensive study of the process by which vacant land on the edge of a city goes into urban use, and particularly of factors influencing the rate of development and rise in prices during the process.4