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- Info
Discontinuous urban development and economic efficiency
| Author: |
Ohls, James C.; Pines, David |
| Date: |
1975 |
| Periodical: |
Land Economics |
| Abstract: |
This paper has presented reasons for believing that discontinuous urban development may often be consistent with efficient allocation of resources. In particular, we have discussed in some detail two possible cases where discontinuous development patterns may represent efficient allocations of land in the urban setting. In the first case, it was shown that in the context of the expansion of a rapidly growing city it may sometimes be efficient to skip over relatively centrally located land early in the development process in order to build low density dwellings in suburban locations. The skipped-over land is then filled in with higher-density residential buildings during later stages of development. The second urban development scenario discussed in the paper concerned the development of a commercial center near the fringe of an urban area. Here too it was shown that under some conditions it is efficient temporarily to skip over developable land. The vacant land is then filled in with commercial development after population in the area has grown sufficiently to allow an efficient scale of operation for the commercial activity. Nothing in our discussion shows that all cases of discontinuous development reflect efficient market processes. Indeed, while it was not our purpose to discuss them in this paper, we believe that there may well be a variety of institutional forces in the market including possible monopoly elements and inefficient tax incentives which work against land market efficiency in some urban contexts. However, what we hope that the above analysis does suggest is that competitive urban land markets may well allocate land more efficiently than many observers seem to believe. |
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