The Nature of Urban Land

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Abstract
Abstract. Considerations about landinterpose into almost every aspect of urban life. They may not be the only factor determining a city's well‐being but appropriate land policies are necessary to bring about prosperity and equity. Contemporary accounts of the ‘urban crisis’ and of urban problems reveal the pervasiveness of land issues. Use of one urban land parcel has bearing on the usability of neighboring sites, which makes land a community resource. Urban land may be defined as land used or expected to be used for urban activities. Its attributes include location, space, property, clustering, heterogeneity and immobility and indestructibility. Neo‐classical theorists, by stressing accessibility and ignoring externalities and other attributes of land, achieved only an unrealistic understanding of it. Most land economists are institutionalists, their theory encompassing long‐validated concepts about the nature of land. The neo‐Marxian approach has many points of congruence with the institutionalist one. Empirically investigated, urban land is found to be different from economic goods and hence its production, allocation and disposition must proceed at least like other public goods.

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