Land Conversion at the Urban Fringe: A Comparative Study of Japan, Britain and the Netherlands

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Abstract
In the 1980s, the multiplier between land values for agricultural and urban uses was found to run at 50-200 (times) or even higher in the areas surrounding expanding cities in Japan and Britain, compared to 2-3 in the Netherlands (no servicing costs considered). The Japanese experience suggests that this socially inexcusably large gap may result mainly from the speculative motives of landowners rather than from alleged excessive public regulations of development. A more desirable policy orientation is proposed, whereby landowners, either sellers or buyers of greenfields, should bear more explicitly the social costs of land-use conversion rather than merely relying on the loosening of development regulations to remedy problems.