Municipal Service Pricing

Impact on the Spatial Location of Residential Development

by David M. De Ferranti, Carole Chew, Isao Kobashi, Elizabeth S. Rolph, J. Webb

Purchase Print Copy

 FormatList Price Price
Add to Cart Paperback100 pages $15.00 $12.00 20% Web Discount

One in a series of reports on the impact of municipal service pricing policies on urban structure and finance. The purpose of R-1878/4 is to examine the effectiveness of alternative pricing policies in deterring noncontiguous or "leapfrog" residential development. Will a service pricing policy which causes fees and charges collected on new residential construction to be higher for leapfrog projects than for projects contiguous with previously developed areas induce a shift in the spatial distribution of growth within the municipality toward a more compact pattern of expansion? Theoretical considerations and some recent empirical evidence are discussed, and results are given from a simulation analysis based on data from a recent developer survey in Santa Clara County, California. The analysis demonstrates that the impact on locational patterns of a tax on leapfrogging may be highly sensitive to the size of the tax, the degree to which it can be passed on to the home-buyer, and land value adjustments. (See also R-1878/1, R-1878/2, R-1878/3.)

This report is part of the RAND Corporation report series. The report was a product of the RAND Corporation from 1948 to 1993 that represented the principal publication documenting and transmitting RAND's major research findings and final research.

The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.