Regional and Urban Economics Parts 1 & 2

Urban Land Use Theory

MASAHISA FUJITA¹

University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

0. INTRODUCTION

The modern theory of urban land use is essentially a revival of von Thünen’s theory [147] of agricultural land use. Despite its significance as a monumental contribution to scientific thought, von Thünen’s theory has languished without attracting the widespread attention of economists for over a century.² During that time human settlements grew extensively and outpaced the traditional guidance of urban design. It was the outburst of urban problems since the late 1950’s that manifested the urgent need for a systematic theory of urban space and brought back the attention of location theorists and economists to von Thünen’s theory.

Isard [68, ...