These were advantages which dated from pioneer times and they belonged to the period of extensive economics, which coincided with the development of the United States and its earlier industrial expansion. They lasted until well into the twentieth century.
The factor of land value
But to-day these differentials are disappearing rapidly. Land, which, when the country was being settled and when our big industrial centres were being founded, could be had at almost nominal cost, is now scarce and, in most districts, is very high priced. The influx of population from the countrysides into the cities has brought about the rapid industrial expansion of the last fifty years, and has caused a tremendous speculation in urban lands, which is reflected in inflated prices. The studies made of the increase in land values in the new industrial cities of Gary and Lackawanna, and the history of certain tracts of land in New York City, illustrate, in a striking way, how great this increase is.
The introduction of the structural steel frame and the elevator, coupled with the development of high-speed transportation, are other factors which have contributed to the rise in the value of city land. They have immensely increased the possibility of deriving income from real estate, and have worked to raise the value of land, which depends on the income that can be obtained from it. As a result of this more intensive use of land, the buyer of a home site is apt to find that the future growth of the city has been heavily discounted, even in the prices of outlying land; and, to a certain degree, he must outbid the promoter who is seeking a location for a larger building. Zoning is offered as a solution of the problem presented by the rise in prices of city lands in anticipation of more intensive commercial uses: i. e., by forbidding business and industry to enter residence districts, their land values are kept down. This remedy, however, does not reach the important factor of the increased cost of public improvements.
Factor of public improvements
Even worse, the prospective home-builder discovers that the increased cost of municipal improvements of paving, sanitation and water supply, and of the public services, such as gas and
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