Abstract
A great deal of urban economics is not geographical; it is concerned with the production and allocation of urban ‘goods’, such as housing, without being primarily concerned with their location. But some of the most acute problems of cities are concentrated in particular areas or are linked with the location of residences and workplaces. A study of urban spatial structure is therefore a necessary background to the examination of certain aspects of public policy. This is a field which overlaps with urban geography, and much of the best recent work has been done by geographers, although the founding fathers of the subject were a sociologist and two practising land valuers.
A cursory glance reveals similarities among cities, and further investigation demonstrates that their structural movements, complex and irregular as they are, respond to definite principles
Richard M. Hurd, Principles of City Land Values 1903, p. 13.
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Alex Anas and D. S. Dendrinos, ‘The New Urban Economics: A Brief Survey’ in G. J. Papageorgiou (ed.) Mathematical Land Use Theory, D. C. Heath & Co. 1976 p. 23.
Harold Carter, The Study of Urban Geography Edward Arnold, 2nd ed. 1975.
T. H. Elkins, The Urban Explosion, Macmillan 1973.
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References
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Ibid. One Hundred Years of Land Values in Chicago. Chicago University Press, 1933.
Harris, Chauncy D. & Ullman, Edward L. ‘The Nature of Cities’ Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Service November 1945. Reprinted in Readings in Urban Geography p. 277. H. M. Mayer and C. F. Kohn (eds) University of Chicago Press, 1959.
W. Firey. Land use in Central Boston. Cambridge, Mass. 1947. This explanation rather weakens the case for very high density (‘over 100 dwelling units per acre’) made by Jane Jacobs, largely with reference to the North End of Boston. The warmth and sociability which she found so attractive may not have been due to the very high density as such, but to the fact that it was a community of Italians — a gregarious people under any conditions — with cultural and vocational links stimulated by their immigrant status.
H. Hoyt. ‘Residential Sectors Revisited’ The Appraisal Journal 27, 1950.
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Homer Hoyt, ‘The Residential and Retail Patterns of Leading Latin American Cities’ Land Economics 39. 1963.
It may be added that the direction of urban growth has been influenced by the questionale housing policies often adopted by city authorities. In Guayaquil, the largest town of Ecuador, there is a huge squatter area in a marsh which is flooded every day, although large areas of dry land are undeveloped. The good land is owned by the national housing agency, which builds houses which only a small proportion of the population can afford, and wishes to know nothing about the ‘self-build’ sector.
Homer Hoyt, ‘Recent Distortions of the Classical Models of Urban Structure’ in Land Economics May 1964 reprinted in Bourne (ed.) Internal Structure of the City. p. 84.
K. H. Schaeffer and E. Sclar, Access for All, Penguin (USA) 1975.
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R. Vernon. The Myth and Reality of Our Urban Problems Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1966.
A sympathetic history of regional policy, together with some of the second thoughts which have now begun to appear in academic papers, is given in the contributions by G. Hallett and P. Randall in Regional Policy for Ever? IEA Readings 11, London 1973. Perhaps because of its publisher, this booklet was not reviewed in the journals. Better known are studies such as ‘Evaluating the Effects of British Regional Policy’ by B. Moore and J. Rhodes, Economic Journal, March 1973, which estimates the effect of policy changes on employment on the basis of the improvement in the overall ‘regional’ situation in the 1960s, or Capital versus the Regions, 1976, by Stuart Holland ‘an author who has been influential in formulating British Government policies’ who criticises traditional policy for failing to realise that ‘the regional problem is caused by capitalism’. The most comprehensive survey is The Framework of Regional Economics in the United Kingdom, A. J. Brown, CUP., 1972.
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Professor Neutze disagrees, maintaining that local authorities would sacrifice flexibility by disclosing their plans, and that private developers would be able to undermine them. (op. cit. p. 173n.)
H. W. Richardson et. al., Housing and urban spatial structure: a case study Saxon House, 1975.
B. T. Robson, Urban Social Areas, Oxford University Press, 1975. Perhaps the author accepts somewhat too readily the denunciations of a market economy in most of the literature he reviews: the assertion that housing is ‘a social need, not a consumer luxury’ (p. 52) appears less conclusive if one substitutes ‘food’ for ‘housing’ (although this is what advocates of permanent food rationing argued in the early 1950s ).
National Building Agency, Land Costs and Housing Development 1968.
P. A. Stone ‘The Price of Building Sites in Britain’ in P. Hall (ed.) Land Values London 1965, p. 1 ff.
Graham Hallett, Housing and Land policies in West Germany and Britain Macmillan 1977. p. 97.
There has been a theoretical debate in ‘NUE’ on the possibility of housing rent-bid curves sloping upward from the centre outward. The reality is that, even in North America, there are cities such as Toronto where house prices generally fall from the centre outward and others where the reverse is the case: it depends on the extent of physical and social decay in the central city. But in both cases there is no steady rise up or down, but rises and falls, varying in different directions.
A tendency towards a ‘peak and plateau’ in land values is found not only in North America. Stockholm has very different land policies from those in the USA, including draconian planning regulations and extensive municipal ownership. However, a land value ‘model’ (literally) produced in the Royal Institute of Technology shows a very similar pattern.
L. S.Bourne, Private Redevelopment of the Central City, University of Chicago, 1961 ibid. ‘Urban Structure and Land Use Decisions.’ Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 66, No. 4, 1976.
Richard T. Ely and George S. George . Land Economics New York, 1940. p. 133ff.
H. W. Richardson. The New Urban Economics: and Alternatives. Academic Press, London, 1977.
Professor Richardson reaches the very fair conclusion that ‘NUE’ is unlikely to give much insight into the solution of urban problems but that ‘progress in urban economics will be much stronger if the theorists and policymakers maintain contact, and try to learn from each other’ (p. 243).
W. Alonso. ‘A theory of the urban land market’, Papers and Proceedings of the Regional Science Association 1960. Reprinted in W. H. Leahy et. al. Urban Economics New York 1970. p. 55.
Richard F. Muth. Cities and Housing, Chicago 1969;
see also Alan W. Evans The Economics of Residential Location, London, 1973.
L. S. Bourne, ‘Housing Supply and Housing Market Behaviour in Residential Development’ in D. T. Herbert and R. J. Johnston Social Areas in Cities, Wiley 1976.
Ralph Turvey The Economics of Real Property London 1957. p. 47.
Royal commission on the Distribution of Income and Wealth. Report No. 6. Lower Incomes Cmnd 7175. HMSO 1978.
J. Lessinger, ‘The Case for Scatteration’ Journal of the American Institute of Planners. Aug. 1962.
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© 1979 Graham Hallett
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Hallett, G. (1979). Urban Spatial Structure. In: Urban Land Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-04537-2_6
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