Vacant Urban Land Holdings: Portfolio Considerations and Owner Characteristics

the optimal location of industries, retail trade and residences. Most models of urban structure have assumed other location decisions (public, institutional, office, etc.) either exogenous or have studied these decisions to only a minor degree. In addition there has been little work on why certain parcels of land are not developed at all. Such parcels make up a relatively large proportion of the land area of cities [18; 19; 20]. According to the relatively recent study by Northam, approximately 24 percent of land in cities of 100,000 or more is vacant and an average of 78 percent of this vacant land is considered buildable [20, 353]. If one considers smaller cities and includes contiguous suburban areas, the proportion of vacant land is much larger. The existence of this vacant land has been of considerable concern because