LAND-VALUE FUNCTIONS - RE-EVALUATION

In this paper we investigate the spatial patterns of land values in the city of Chicago in 1960 and 1970. It is found that the relationship between the natural logarithm of land value and distance to the central business district (CBD) can best be described by a polynomial of the fourth degree. This functional form implies that, over a range of about 4 to 10 miles, land value increases with distance to the CBD. This finding is consistent with several recent theoretical studies which focus on environmental and neighborhood effects and multicenter metropolitan areas, although the fourth-degree polynomial remained the best description of the land value-distance relationship after empirical attempts were made to take some of these effects into account. © 1979.