ABSTRACT
As was emphasised in the last chapter, land values fundamentally affect land use, housing, transport and other aspects of urban life. High land values can create problems for local authorities when they attempt to plan and regulate growth, and the need to compensate landowners for highly priced land can act as a deterrent to necessary industrial and residential development. In sum, land values can determine land use, and some of the most serious spatial inequalities characteristic of British cities have been caused at least in part by high — many would say unfairly high — land values. The decline of many inner city areas, for example, is inextricably entwined with high land values which make the cost of clearance and purchase prohibitive. Indisputably, then, the role of the state in relation to land values and prices is of fundamental importance to all other urban policies. Two issues have dominated land values policy is Britain since 1945: at what level should the state compensate land owners whose land is acquired (either by agreement or compulsion) for public or community purposes; and whether or not, and at what level, the state should seek to collect increases {betterment) in land values created by private capital or government action. Unfortunately, as is the case with all issues of relative justice, the two concepts are prey to varying interpretations — often as a result of prior political judgements and prejudice which serve to leave the formulation of equitable policy as much to the vagaries of political expediency as to any clearly studied and well
thought out policy prescription. The land values question is highly complex, and before proceeding to an analysis of policy, a short introduction to the basic issues involved will be useful.
