Richard M. Hurd

“ New inventions and new habits and customs will probably cause the most marked future changes other than those due to growth or transportation. All cheapening of the cost of buildings, all improvements in construction, all inventions, tend constantly to destroy the value of existing buildings. All improvements in transportation, such as the trolley, the elevated, the underground, the bicycle, the automobile - and in future possibly the flying machine - tend to destroy the value of these locations which depend on existing transportation. ”

“ In each city the sections built up by the different factors may be clearly distinguished, these flourishing or decaying according to the prosperity or decline of their special factors. Thus the railroads, docks and warehouses evidence the city's commerce; the factories its industrial energies; the retail shops the consuming power of the population; the residence sections the wealth, social grades and numbers of the citizens; and the buildings of public and semi-public utility the standard of civilization and civic pride of the city. ”

“ All the land, however, will by no means increase in value, the great mass of medium business and residence property advancing but slowly since it supplies the wants of a large number of people of moderate earning power who cannot pay beyond a certain price. Coincident with the gradual lifting of values as population becomes more dense, decaying sections, left behind in the onward march, drop down the scale of inferior utilities and values, sometimes to the point of extinction. Such worn-out property exhibits in its dilapidations both absence of utility and public confession of that fact. ”

“ In all growth, central or axial, great or small, the vital feature is continuity, the universal tendency being to add on buildings one by one, of the same general character as those which preceded them. Lack of continuity from whatever cause explains many of the greatest disappointments in anticipated real estate movements, such as for example the failure of the west side in New York, when first developed, to attract fine residences. ”

“ In general terms the difference in desirability is based on the social service which they render, or conversely, the sacrifice which they save. The land which is most convenient is first utilized, and that which is less convenient is made of service in accordance with its diminishing facilities. Since convenience means economy in time and effort, the value in any piece of land will represent the cost saved or the pleasure obtained by its use, as compared with the use of land worth nothing, multiplied by the number and economic quality of the people for whom the saving is made. ”

“ While we may properly speak of cities as having started from one centre, the largest cities have swallowed up many villages and towns, both their own offshoots and independent settlements. Thus New York absorbed Greenwich, Chelsea, Bowery, Harlem, Brooklyn, Long Island City, etc.; Philadelphia absorbed Spring Garden, Northern Liberties, Kensington, South-walk, Moyamensing, etc., and Boston absorbed Roxbury, Dorchester, Charleston, Brighton, East Boston, South Boston, etc. The impetus of the chief city is so great as to practically obliterate the influence of the smaller towns. ”

“ Growth in cities consists of movement away from the point of origin in all directions, except as topographically hindered, this movement being due both to aggregation at the edges and pressure from the centre. Central growth takes place both from the heart of the city and from each subcentre of attraction, and axial growth pushes into the outlying territory by means of rail-roads, turnpikes and street railroads. ”

“ Value in urban land, as in agricultural land, is the resultant of economic or ground rent capitalized. As first laid down, the theory of agricultural ground rents emphasized fertility as a source of rent. Later, when it was noted that it was not the most fertile lands that were first occupied but rather those nearest new settlements, accessibility or proximity to cities was recognized as an important factor in creating agricultural ground rent. In cities, economic rent is based on superiority of location only, the sole function of city land being to furnish area on which to erect buildings. ”

“ The dependence of value in land on economic rent is clearly seen in the origin of any city, utility in land arising when the first buildings are erected, but not value in land, as is evidenced by the fact that the first settlers are commonly allowed to build their houses wherever they please and enclose whatever land they need, as occurred in New York and many other cities. As a city grows, more remote and hence inferior locations must be utilized and the difference in desirability between the two grades produces economic rent in locations of the first grade, but not in those of the second. ”

“ The worst that can happen to a suburban tract is that it should be forced on the market before there is a demand for it, the result being that poor people attracted by low prices, will build cheap houses there and create a shabby and repulsive district, which, if large enough, may act as a bar to the city's growth in that direction. There are many cases, of course, where such occupancy is but temporary, as with the shanty settlements on the upper west side in New York, and the negro ownership on residence streets in Washington. ”

“ The life of value in land, whether the unit taken is a city, a section of a city, or a single lot, bears a close analogy to all other life in being normally characterized by a small beginning, gradual growth and increased strength, up to a point of maximum power, after the attainment of which comes a longer or shorter decline to a final disappearance. ”

“ In reviewing the evolution of value in urban land, the first step is to conceive of the naked site apart from the buildings, having only the qualities of location and extension and without value until there is competition for land. ”

“ The inhabitants of a city do not intermingle at random, but go from one place to another by the quickest, shortest, or most agreeable route. For example, in New York many thousands of the upper classes have never been west of Sixth Avenue or east of Third Avenue, except to the ferries, and many thousands on the lower east side have never seen Fifth Avenue, while in New Orleans, many Creoles have never crossed Canal Street into the American quarter. ”

“ The small streams of products from the farm, the forest or the mine flowing together on the way to their markets, create trade routes, and similarly the inhabitants of a city, controlled by economic forces and flowing together on their daily way to their places of business, create traffic streets or city trade routes. Railroads which create cities at their terminals and, in lesser degree, at their transfer points, have their counterpart in street railroads which draw utilities and values to their terminals, and, in lesser degree, to their lines and street intersections. ”

“ The attempt to force economic rent into city land seems to be uniformly unsuccessful, history showing that cities grow and are not made, and that human beings cannot be uprooted and moved in large numbers and immediately adjust themselves to the different opportunities of a new environment.
Why are ground rents paid for some locations and not for others? ”

“ Turning to the various types of buildings occupied, we note that buildings are frequently spoken of when it is the utility carried on within them which is meant. That it is utilities and not mere buildings which are influential should be strongly emphasized, since the view is commonly held that buildings create value in land, so that where expensive buildings are erected the land will be expensive, and where cheap buildings are erected the land will be cheap. ”

“ In retailing the buyer necessarily seeks the seller, but since in all forms of trade it is the seller who is anxious to promote business, the retailer facilitates his possible customers by placing his shop where the largest number of them would pass, even though his shop were not there. Here he utilizes his shop windows and signs to draw customers into his shop, the two elements of convenience of location and advertising advantage working hand in hand. ”

“ Thus the value of all urban land ranges from that which least serves the smallest number of people of the lowest economic quality, up to that which best serves the largest number of people of the highest economic quality. ”

“ The women of wealth shop usually in the morning between 11 and 2 o'clock, so that even in their case the west or south side of the street has some advantage of shade. In southern cities where shade is even more important, the relative value of the four corners of two intersecting business streets is well defined, the southwest corner being the most valuable, the southeast next, the northwest next, and finally the northeast corner. This refers only to retail shopping fronts, the corners having a different order of preference if desired for other purposes, such as hotels or office buildings. ”

“ Starting from the condition of no value in land when a city originates, let us consider the scale of average values of residence and business land in cities of various sizes, land used for other purposes being omitted as being more of an individual problem. ”

“ The influence of topography, all-powerful when cities start, is constantly modified by human labor, hills being cut down, waterfronts extended, and swamps, creeks and low-lands filled in, this, however, not taking place until the new building sites are worth more than the cost of filling and cutting. The measure of resistance to the city's growth is here changed from terms of land elevation or depression, and hence income cost, to terms of investment or capital cost. ”

“ The impression that the points of a compass affect the direction of city growth is based on the statement that the majority of English and German cities are growing west, owing to the prevailing west winds which drive away the dense smoke from soft coal and render the west end of these cities the preferable residence sections. No such general tendency, however, exists in this country. As to their laying out, cities may be divided into two classes, those which have grown up without any definite ground plan and those whose ground plan has been laid out in advance of growth. ”