ABSTRACT
Authority for taking decisions about the use of land operates at two levels. Government executives devise plans for regional and national purposes and the general principles and criteria which guide them have added a new department of knowledge to social and economic studies. From the time of the classical economists to the present day the theory of rent has inevitably been linked with the name of Ricardo. Rent is a differential. And differentials have no tangible form unless they lie within the bounds of exclusive property rights. Land in social and central economic planning tends to be looked upon as a homogeneous continuum; a chequer-board over which capital, labour and management move in interaction. When alternative schemes for the use of land are evaluated from what is called a social standpoint, land costs and values are frequently left out of the calculations on the plea that the land factor is common in extent and in value to all the alternatives.
