URBAN LAND USE

What is urban land use?

Urban land use reflects the location and level of
spatial accumulation of activities such as
retailing, management, manufacturing, or
residence. They generate flows supported by
transport systems.
Urban areas are characterized by social, cultural
and economic activities taking place at separate
locations forming an activity system. E.g.
commuting and shopping

Some activities tends to be iiregular and shaped

by lifestyle (e.g. sports and leisure) or by specific
needs (e.g. healthcare). All of these activities are
related to the mobility of passengers
In addition, there are production activities that are
related to manufacturing and distribution, whose linkages
maybe local, regional, or global. Such activities are
usually related to the mobility of freight
Activities have different locations, therefore their
separation is a generator of movements of passengers
and freight which are supported by transportation
Transportation and land use are therefore interrelated
because of the locational and interactional nature of
urban activities.
The urban land use is a highly heterogeneous
space and this heterogeneity is in part shaped
by the transport system. There is a hierarchy in
the distribution of urban activities where central
areas have emerged because of economic
(management and retail), political (seats of
government), or cultural factors (religious
institutions).
Central areas have a high level of spatial
accumulation and the corresponding land uses such
as retail, while peripheral areas have lower levels of
accumulation corresponding to residential and
warehousing.
The preferences of individuals, institutions, and
firms have an imprint on land use in terms of their
locational choice. The representation of this imprint
requires a typology of land use, which can be
formal or functional:
• Formal land use representations are concerned
with qualitative attributes of space such as its
form, pattern, and aspect and are descriptive in
nature.

• Functional land use representations are

concerned with the economic nature of activities
such as production, consumption, residence, and
transport, and are mainly a socioeconomic
description of space.
Urban land use is determined by the various
decisions made by the following:
• Firms
• House holds
• Local Government authorities
 Firms
• Firms occupying shops, offices and factories
have on occasions to decide whether to
expand, and if so, whether to move or
redevelop the existing site.
• In a dynamic economy, new firms come into
being and have to choose where to locate.
 Households
• Households decide where to live, and if many
people move in a particular direction- for
example, to the suburbs- it profoundly affects
the character of urban land use.
• Example Johannesburg Old CBD
 Local Government Authorities
The LGA influence land use through the
following:
• control of development
• overall transport policy
• the siting of roads
• By local authority house- building and
comprehensive redevelopment
Determination of the price of land
The price of land, like the prices of other goods,
is determined by the interaction of supply and
demand in the market.
For spatial reasons, land is limited in supply,
especially land in the center of an urban area.
The supply of sites for any one use cannot be
regarded as being completely inelastic, since
alternative, locations exist as we move outwards
from the centre.
The number of sites increase exponentially as
the radius lengthens.
This results in any increase in the demand for
land of a particular type or for a particular use is
capable of bringing forth additional supplies.
Demand by firms and households for a
particular location depends upon the expected
net revenue yeild/utility
The price/rent is what has to be paid by a
particular use to prevent the site to some other
use.
Different locations have different use
capabilities, a pattern of differential rents
emerges.
The pattern of land use reflects the competition
between alternative uses for sites in the market
• Thus land values and land use are determined
simultaneously.
• The greatest demand will be for those sites
having the greatest relative advantage. This is
likely to make intensive development of the
site profitable.
• The segment that can use the site most
intensively will be able to pay the highest
price/rent
 Rent earning capacity
• It is the maximum amount which a particular
activity can bid for land in a given location.
• The bid will depend upon businessmen’s profit-
maximising decisions and households’ utility-
maximising considerations.
• The businessmen will seek that location which
maximizes net gain, that is, the difference
between receipts and costs, not simply the one
which maximises sales revenue or minimises
production costs.
• Similarly a household seeks to maximise the
utility advantage of a locality over costs of
travel.
TRANSPORT COSTS AND LOCATION
Von Thunen theory looked at the model of land
use and prices. This concentrated on differences
in relative transport costs in different types of
agricultural production.
 Overview of Van Thunen model
Von Thunen assumed the following:
• A boundless flat and featureless plain over
which natural resources and climate are
distributed uniformly;
• A central market
• Uniform horse and cart transport facilities to
this central market
• Different foods can be grown, but since these
differ in bulk, the cost of transporting them to
the market differs;
• For each type of product, transport costs vary
directly and proportionately with distance
from the central market.
• Different products have different cost patterns
– for example, as regards transport and
production costs
• Receipts from the cultivation of one hectare of
land are the same for all types of product
Since urban areas involve specialized land uses
having specific functions, each land use zone
involves a set of relationships with other land
uses.
These relationships can be expressed by the
mobility of passengers and freight since they
represent a realized transport demand such as
commuting (mobility of passengers) or
supplying stores (mobility of freight).
These relationships are assumed by different
transport systems involving transport operators
that can be individuals, public or private
companies. Overlaying all those relationships is
close to an impossibility, but the most dominant
relations usually involve large commercial,
manufacturing, and transport terminal areas
(such as ports and airports).
Relationship between land uses
Using the example of a polycentric city, zones A and E are
both commercially-oriented with their associated
mobility of passengers (workers and customers) and
freight (suppliers).
Zones B and F are dotted with distribution centers
servicing commercial activities, which implies the
mobility of freight. Zones C, G, and D are residential areas
(G being of high density) from where flows of passengers
are originating.
These relationships thus have a spatiality (concentration,
dispersion) and a hierarchy (low to high volumes).
Rent-paying capacity as a function of
transport costs
• Value and costs are measured vertically, the
quantity concerned being assumed to be the
product of one hectare.

• OC – costs of production excluding the cost of

transport to the market, at a production point
which coincides with the central market
• As distance from the market increases, so total
costs are raised by the increased cost of transport
along line Cc’
• Revenue at central market = OR
• Rent or bid price per hectare (the difference
between total revenue and cost) diminishes as
distance from the market increases e.g.
distance Od – bid price is rb and at Od’, r’b’
• At ON = no rent margin for this particular
product i.e. if this were the only product, land
at greater distance than ON would be without
value
 Two Products or more
• Where more than one product is possible, the
bid price and the ‘no-rent margin’ will vary
according to their different transport costs.
Pattern of Urban Land Use
 Von Thunen model
The theory of location based on transport costs
from a central market produces a pattern of
concentric zones, each zone specializing in a
particular type of agricultural produce.
By substituting “general accessibility” for
transport costs we can apply the Von Thunen
model to urban areas.
The firms will oust households from the CBD.
See graph 1, which will give a commercial zone
of radius OC surrounded by a residential zone.

Land values will fall from the center to the

periphery as indicated by the thick line LP which
shows the highest bid at any point.
Accessibility and land use
• Location pattern of land use in an urban area
reflects the demand for and supply of sites

• Sites will be secured by function that extract

the greatest return from its accessibility
advantages since it offers the highest rent
Von Thunen model can explain the following:
• The pattern of land use of the urban area;
• The fall in land values from the center to the
periphery; and
• How the urban area grows, since each zone
tends to expand into the next as population
and economic growth occur
However urban land use today is continually
being modified through changes in the
following:
a) The size and composition of the city’s
population
b) The level and distribution of income
c) Technology, such as development of road
transport and information technology
d) The social and economic organisation of
community life – for example, TV, Sunday
shopping, multi car ownership;
e) Government policy – for example its
presumption against further development of out
of town shopping center and green belts
f) The growth of the urban area
In response to this factors, land use alters by:
• Adapting existing space by for example,
dividing larges houses into flats
• Changing the type of land use such as
residential to commercial use vice versa
• Demolition and rebuilding of old structures
• Infilling of vacant land within the city
boundaries (open spaces)
The broad pattern of urban land use
Factors determining urban land
use
• Businesses locate their activities where they
can maximise profits and house holds live
where they can maximise utility.

• But what determines profitability and utility?

• Answer: Accessibility
• The advantages of a particularly urban
location in terms of movement, convenience
and amenity.

Accessibility can be split into two:

• General accessibility
• Special accessibility
 General accessibility
The advantage of a particular location in terms
of the movement costs (including time) it avoids
and the revenue earning capacity (including
convenience) it affords.
Thus firms require general accessibility to factors
of production (particularly labour) and to
markets, while households seek accessibility to
work opportunities, shops, schools and
recreational facilities.
General accessibility is largely dependent upon
transport facilities, the Von Thunen model can
be applied to an urban area.
CBD is limited spatially and competition for sites
there results in high prices/rents.
Thus the advantages of accessibility have to be
compared with the level of rent.
For shops, accessibility to as many customers as
possible is paramount and the revenue-earning
capacity of ground floor locations in the CBD
enables them to outbid other users
 Special accessibility- agglomeration
economics
• Means that, within the pattern of urban land
use produced by general accessibility, there is
a ‘clustering’ of shops and activities such as
ladies fashion
 2. Environmental characteristics
• Historical development
• Topographical features
• Size
• Imperfections of the capital market
 3. Rent
• How does rent determine urban land use?
 4. Dynamic factors
• Increase in real income
• Technical developments
• This are transport and communications
development
 5.Government policy
Both central and local government influences
location decisions through its policies on the
following:
• Taxation
• Planning
• Open space, Parks, Conservation
• Housing, schools, public utilitise
• Transport and traffic congestion