THE ROLE OF INFRASTRUCTURE IN THE SUPPLY OF HOUSING*

ABSTRACT As the housing stock in a city is duplicated, developers must devote greater amounts of resources to the provision of infrastructure. If the production of infrastructure is characterized by decreasing returns to scale, this will cause the price of developable land to increase. The conditions under which an upward-sloping supply curve for housing will result are discussed. Using cross-sectional data for U.S. cities from 1973 to 1982, it is shown that land prices fail to increase with the quantity of construction and that the price elasticity of the supply of housing is infinite.     

DISGUISED,URBAN UNEMPLOYMENT AND WELFARE IN A GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM MODEL WITH SEGMENTED LABOR MARKETS*

ABSTRACT This paper integrates the theory of segmented labor markets with the Ranis-Fei model of dualism to analyze two types of unemployment; disguised unemployment in the rural sector and urban unemployment. The major results obtained are (1) sector-specific accumulation in the urban area may raise unemployment and lower welfare and (2) sector-specific accumulation in the rural sector always raises welfare but increases disguised unemployment. These results highlight the importance of regional resource allocation and the role of the agricultural sector in reducing urban unemployment.     

FROM THE FIRM GROUND OF RESULT AND FACT TO THE TOSSING SEA OF CAUSE AND THEORY: THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT IN URBAN DEVELOPMENT*

Are government policies of any real significance in shaping the pattern of development in metropolitan regions? This essay summarizes the widely-held view that ‘economic forces’ determine the distribution of jobs and residences in urban areas, and argues that this conclusion involves serious conceptual difficulties. The essay then shows how the theory of political influence and related concepts can be used to clarify the issue of causation in urban development, and summarizes the authors' own substantive conclusions—that under certain specifiable conditions government activities do have a highly significant role in shaping metropolitan growth.     

CONTESTED BOUNDARIES: STATE POLICIES,FOREST CLASSIFICATIONS,AND DEFORESTATION IN THE GARHWAL HIMALAYAS

Prominent environmental scholars and activists in India have posited that environmental crises in the Indian Himalayas result primarily from adopting forestry practices that override local communities and argue that the region can be sustained only when the state allows local communities to practice indigenous forest management. This paper challenges those critiques: focusing on the Garhwal Himalayas, it shows that forestry practices involve contestation and negotiation between the state and local communities and argues that environmental scholars fail to recognize how particular classes have shaped forest use and management practices and played a central role in determining environmental sustainability for local communities.     

TAX AND FINANCIAL POLICIES FOR THE HOUSING MARKET OF THE 1980s

The imbalance in the age structure of the U.S. population has created conditions for heavy demand and consequently pressures for rising relative prices in the market for owner-occupied single family housing in the 1980s and 1990s. Working in reverse, the unbalanced demographics may well lead to the falling relative price of housing around 2010, the period in which the baby boom generation will be retiring and may wish to liquidate its housing investment. Changes in housing policies during the 1980s could help offset the anticipated costs associated with the swings in demand pressures in the housing market over the next forty years. Current favorable tax and financial policies toward homeownership encourage both the overconsumption of housing and the overinvestment in housing as a retirement asset. Tax and financial policies could be changed to neutralize the attractiveness of owner-occupied single family units relative to alternative types of housing units. To avoid overbuilding for the future, policies could encourage the efficient use of existing housing resources through intergenerational turnover, upgrading of units and neighborhood improvement, and condominium-style conversion of multiunit structures from rental to owner-occupancy. Finally, tax and financial policies toward investment could encourage the baby boom generation to diversify its retirement assets outside of housing.     

IDEOLOGY AND URBAN LANDSCAPES: CONCEPTIONS OF THE MARKET IN PORTLAND,MAINE*

This paper concerns the role of ideology in the operation of urban land and housing markets. We argue that existing work in this area tends to be overly abstract and to reify ideology. To correct this, we advocate examining understandings of particular land and housing markets. We focus on Portland, Maine, and analyze discourses on the uneven costs of social development, inner-city redevelopment, a recent decline in the regional economy and Portland's place in that economy. Traditional pro-market interpretations dominate, but we also identify more politicized understandings - many of which are also pro-market. They are applied very selectively, for example to explain a crisis but not a boom. We conclude that politicized conceptions of market operations are not necessarily radical and may in fact be crucial to the survival of capitalism.     

URBAN UNEMPLOYMENT AND THE SPATIAL STRUCTURE OF LABOR MARKETS: AN EXAMINATION OF THE “TODARO PARADOX” IN A SPATIAL CONTEXT*

ABSTRACT The Todaro paradox and the effects of job creation in urban areas will be re-examined in our spatial model in which the radius of the labor market is endogenously determined by the rational choices of workers. The travel cost of workers plays a crucial role in the choice between two different types of response, migration or commuting. By considering travel costs, we find that the Todaro paradox can be applied to developed, as well as developing, countries. Job creation in urban areas can produce a paradoxical increase in urban unemployment in developed countries, because the low marginal cost of travel will significantly increase the radius of the urban labor market and create new labor supply without migration.