A Theory of Vacant Urban Land

The purpose of this paper is to examine the prevalence and causes of vacant urban land. The paper is organized in four parts. The first part summarizes the available information on the extent of vacant urban land. The second section attempts to explain the existence of vacant land by using concepts often applied to labor unemployment. In part three that vacant land which the labor concepts do not explain is attacked with another tool from the economic tool box, the “optimal‐harvest‐time” solution, but this solution is found to have limited applicability. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of how the framework developed in parts two and three might be used. Central in this paper is the attempt to analyze vacant land with theories developed for unemployed labor. This procedure stems from the belief that, whenever possible, new phenomena should be attacked with old theories. Such a methodology conserves effort, for if the old and new phenomena are indeed similar, new theories may not only be unnecessary but undesirable–product differentiation has a cost. Moreover, an old theory can bring out similarities that may not be obvious at first glance, and may suggest areas that deserve more attention.