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.     

CAREERS FOR GEOGRAPHERS: THE CASE OF ONTARIO 1953 TO 1972

T he employment prospects for graduates in different disciplines have recently been the focus of attention for many pessimists.¹ Surveys relating to this problem have been made in a number of countries over the past few years.² In Canada, the Canadian Association of Geographers established a Careers Committee in 1970, under the chairmanship of Professor R. Paquette. The initial task of the committee was to survey the fields of employment into which graduates have moved in the past.     

URBAN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT: AN ANALYSIS OF HOUSING PROVISION IN NORTH AUSTRALIA*

This paper examines the role of urban social movements in shaping the built environment. It is based on empirical work undertaken in two relatively small towns, Darwin and Alice Springs, located in the Northern Territory of Australia. This approach has furnished the opportunity to undertake a true comparative study of the role of social movements in what ostensibly appear to be relatively simple urban locations situated in similar local, national and global circumstances, across the same time-period. In particular, the investigation sets out to examine the contrasting success/failure of social movements to coalesce around the problem of housing provision. The early sections of the paper review various conceptual issues related to the empirical investigation and try to arrive at a usable definition of ‘urban social movement’.     

SPATIAL BARRIERS AND INFORMATION PROCESSING IN HOUSING MARKETS: AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION OF THE EFFECTS OF THE CONNECTICUT RIVER ON HOUSING RETURNS

ABSTRACT. Relative to financial securities markets, information is a scarce commodity in real estate markets. If information diffuses quickly in real estate markets, then we can infer that telecommunications play an important role. On the other hand, spatial barriers such as rivers can slow down the assimilation of relevant information if face-to-face contacts are an important source of information. We examine whether and how the Connecticut River (along with bridges) alters the nature and strength of spatial diffusion of information on housing returns. We report strong evidence that the Connecticut River slows down the spatial diffusion of information and that its effects are consistent with face-to-face contact, as opposed to telecommunications.     

ECONOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF HOUSING TRAIT PRICES IN A THIRD WORLD CITY*

ABSTRACT. A first step in the process of economic analysis of housing markets in Third World cities is the econometric analysis of housing trait prices. The information on market price of housing is basic to the derivation/estimation of other market parameters such as housing demand and supply elasticities. In addition, housing trait prices constitute invaluable inputs into the analysis of effects of government housing programs. This paper presents estimates of housing trait prices in a Third World city housing market, the city of Jos in Nigeria. Nonlinear stochastic specification of a policy constrained hedonic price function is presented as an unbiased estimator of housing trait prices. The Box-Cox statistical procedure was employed in the paper to obtain hedonic regression coefficients which are the parameters needed to compute the average prices evaluated both at the mean of each trait and at their margins. The potential uses of housing trait prices for policy analysis are discussed briefly.     

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.