Urban sprawl occurrence under spatially varying agricultural bid-rent and amenities

This paper presents a spatially explicit model to examine the importance of agricultural amenities as a determinant of the urban and suburban spatial structure. By introducing endogenous agricultural amenities into the classical monocentric model, we provide an intuitive explanation of leapfrog development. We show how urban development patterns highly depend on the intensity of surrounding farms and their ability to produce amenities. We also show that, even in absence of a particular landscape feature or any exogenous source of amenities, fragmented urban sprawl is a natural development pattern for a city surrounded by a spatially varying agricultural environment. Finally, we show how land tax policies could curb urban sprawl under certain conditions on households' preferences and farming.