David T. Scheffman – författare

This study examines ways in which residents of Canadian cities are affected by increases in petroleum prices. The authors apply economic models of residential and industrial location to determine the response of individuals and firms to higher oil prices in the short run and the long run. The short run effects include conservation of higher price petroleum products and reduction in other expenditures; the long run effects include movement closer to employment centres, changes in urban densities, rents, and house prices, and the substitution of other forms of transit. The implications for municipal zoning, the provision of parks, the location of schools and other public facilities, and plans for road building and expressways are also considered.

The recent rapid rise in land and housing prices in Canadian cities has generated much public concern. It is widely supposed that prices have been inflated by monopolistic developers, an assumption that has never been adequately tested. This study evolves a model of the land development process which includes a new theory of land pricing giving special emphases to market structure, speculation, and taxation. It then applies the model to the first fully documented examination of the Toronto land market, presenting specific original data on ownership and land assembly. The history of the conversion of farmland to residential use in four recent Toronto subdivisions permits a close look at the activities and profits of speculative middlemen and at the length of time developers buy land prior to subdividing.

The results indicate that Toronto real estate is not controlled by a few large developers, that ownership concentration is too low to imply market power even if all companies with overlapping corporate control are treated as a single firm. The authors suggest that rising prices have been caused by unforeseen increase in demand, shortages of municipally provided trunk service capacity, especially sewers, and frequent municipal reluctance to grant subdivision approvals.

The book concludes with a general consideration of the role of government in land development and a number of specific policy recommendations concerning the subdivision approval process, the Ontario Land Speculation Tax, and public land banking. This study will be of great interest to urban geographers and economists, to urban planners and policy-makers, and to representatives of development corporations and urban reform groups.

This book describes and analyses the provincial government''s role in municipal and regional planning. The conversion of farmland to urban and other uses is discussed, as are the issues raised by the reports of the Ontario Planning Act Review Committee and the Federal/Provincial Task Force on the Supply and Price of Serviced Residential Land and the province''s Green Paper on Planning for Agriculture.

The authors criticize the government''s failure to conduct cost-benefit studies before setting up planning programs and show that there is little factual basis for recent alarm over the disappearance of farmland. Data gathered here for the first time show that the conversion of agricultural land to built-up urban use and non-farm rural residential use in Ontario has been taking place quite slowly in view of the rate of productivity increase in agriculture, the stock of agricultural land, and the decline in the acreage of census farms.

Economists will find in this book a useful survey of recent trends and policies. Planners, policy-makers, and students will welcome this detailed case study of how economic analysis ought to be used in formulating land use policies.