82 
a. Benefits 
(i) Active Government support for new communities will achieve lower 
land and development costs per unit of government service.—There are 
several different premises that serve as the foundation for this asser- 
tion. For one thing, the claimed reduction may arise as a result of 
either a lower price of land, while quantity and quality of the developed 
output remain constant, or of a higher quantity or quality of the 
developed output while the cost of the land remains constant.” Also 
the reduction may be created over time, because the acquisition may 
predate large increases in land value that are attributable in great 
part to a government’s decision to build a new community in a given 
area. (It will be recalled that the Massachusetts’ courts look unfavor- 
ably upon legislation enacted for the purpose of allowing Govern- 
ment to speculate in real estate; so, to avoid judicial opposition, this 
particular premise should probably focus on land that will be publically 
retained for uses such as parks, streets, and public buildings, rather 
than transferred to private interests at a profit.) A third premise is 
predicated on the possibility that Government in many cases will be 
able to achieve a return on the temporary use of the land. Although 
not really a positive premise, this last statement is intended more as 
a rebuttal, demonstrating mitigating circumstances to the charge 
that advanced land acquisition will be too costly for the public sector. 
The first assertion has not gone unchallenged. The noted urban 
economist, William Alonso, recently ravaged many of the conceptual 
under-pinnings of new community advocates in his critical article 
entitled: ‘“The Mirage of New Towns.” °8 In his analysis, he offered — 
two arguments against the first assertion. First, he argues that the 
Henry George idea of public ownership of land to recapture mere- 
ments in value is a problem because (a) it forgoes the cybernetic 
market mechanism ° and (6) it may inhibit the entrepreneurial 
search for new uses.!° He considers the last reason most important 
because ‘increases in land value are one of the primary incentives 
for private participation.” He argues secondly that, although land 
may be cheaper (its price being established primarily by its locational 
value as determined by its accessibility) it does not mean, therefore, 
that it will be less expensive overall. In fact he believes otherwise: 
“Cheap land will probably be inconvenient land and might prove 
to be very expensive in the end” (p. 28). This argument has less force 
than his first (at least for the purposes of this paper), because Alonso 
appears to be speaking more about the land economies of new towns 
in rural, rather than urbanizing areas. 
(11) Government sponsorship of new communities will mean an improve- 
ment in the procedures and capabilities for getting the best sites —This 
assertion, like the first, has several dimensions, two of which are most 
important. Both are concerned with the process today, and both 
demonstrate how the private sector has worked against Government 
cost optimization. The first has to do with the selection of sites for the 
development of ‘‘actual public uses.’”’ Today, governments delay ac- 
98 Minn ive Mirage of New Towns,” Public Interest, spring 1970; footnotes all based on a longer 
unpublished paper (40 pages) delivered at the Research Conference of the Committee on Urban Economics, 
Sept. 11-12, 1969, Cambridge, Mass. 
ia For an. opposing viewpoint, see Mandelker, ‘‘Controlling Land Values in Areas of Rapid Urban Expan- 
sion,” UCLA Law Review, vol. 12, pp. 734-761 (1965). 
100 Alonso: op. cit.. p. 20. 
