Area, Time, Centrality and the Value of Urban Land

While a substantial body of literature exists on the determinants of urban land values, little work has been done on the influence of lot area.This is because value has generally been assumed to be proportional to area.This paper takes the point of view that a non-proportional value-area function may persist as a result of many factors including development costs, market imperfections, and regulatory constraints.It is hypothesized that value first increases at an increasing rate and then at a decreasing rate as area increases.This function gives rise to the potential for plottage and plattage, the value increment from assembling and subdividing land, respectively.Using a sample of land sales from Champaign, Illinois and two different models, this paper is able to confirm the hypothesis regarding the value-area function and, in addition, to confirm more conventional hypotheses regarding the impact of centrality and time on the value of urban land.' ' '.-.'-'.' '.';.