Introduction

The Consumption Theory of Land Rent (CTLR) is a model of an ideal urban landscape. The chapter compares the CTLR with the work of others in mathematical land rent theory. The CTLR geometric method has several advantages over calculus-based mathematical land rent theory. These advantages include that the CTLR paradigm provides an explanation of the underlying forces for the behavior of the system. Many problems stated in the calculus-based mathematical land rent theories become intractable and often unsolvable. In Von Thunun's model, rent can be thought of as total revenues from selling the product at the market less the cost of producing the harvest and less the cost of transporting the produce to the market. The meaning of spatial equilibrium in the CTLR is fundamentally the same as in the Muth, Casetti, and Solow models, and the CTLR satisfies the partial equilibrium conditions required of the microeconomic consumer behavior theory as well.