5 o2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Harlem Eiver and Bronx Park the increase in land values due to the 

 building of the subway was $31,300,000. 



The report goes on to state that, while the increase in land values 

 above 135th Street, due to the building of the subway, was $39,200,000, 

 the cost of building the subway from this point to 230th Street was 

 $7,375,000, or but 15 per cent of the actual rise caused by the new line. 

 Similarly, the increase in the Bronx land values of more than thirty 

 million dollars was caused by subway construction costing $5,700,000. 12 



These instances are typical of the land value increases which are so 

 apparent in New York City. Other great centers of population, how- 

 ever, show similar conditions. Mr. C. B. Fillebrown, in his " The 

 A-B-C of Taxation," cites some interesting illustrations of increases in 

 the land value of Boston. For example, the land values irrespective of 

 improvements, 



on both sides of Winter Street, including the estates on the Tremont and Wash- 

 ington Street corners were in 1898, $61.57 per square foot; in 1907, $97.50 per 

 square foot. 13 . . . The land in Winter Street, which was assessed at less than 

 four dollars per square foot, in 1850, was assessed in 1907 at one hundred and 

 thirty dollars per square foot. During the fifty-seven years intervening, the 

 income, above taxes, from the land, in rent and appreciation has amounted to 

 an average of one hundred and fifty per cent, annually on the investment 

 of 1850. 14 



Similar illustrations might be cited in endless detail, showing the 

 rise of land values in American cities. Even the casual observer must 

 admit the very obvious facts of land value increase. The one thing 

 needful is some accurate measure of their extent. 



There are a few American cities in which a careful assessment of 

 land independent of improvements has been made. In ISTew York City, 

 for example, the land and improvements have been separately assessed 

 since 1906. The Beport of the Commissioners of Taxes and Assess- 

 ments for 1912 (pages 20-23) gives the land value assessments in con- 

 siderable detail. The value of the land alone for Greater New York 

 was, in 1906, 3,367 million dollars, and in 1912, 4,563 million dollars. 

 This represents an increase in the per capita value of land from $811 

 in 1906 to $898 in 1912. Incidentally, the total value of all improve- 

 ments in 1912 was only two billion, seven hundred and sixteen millions, 

 or about three fifths of the total land value. 



The boroughs separately show a considerable divergence in the ratio 

 of increase. In the Borough of Manhattan, for example, the increase in 



12 ' ' Building of Eapid Transit Lines in New York City. ' ' A memorandum 

 addressed to the Board of Estimate and Appropriation by the City Club of New 

 York, October 2, 1908. 



18 C. B. Fillebrown, ' ' The A-B-C of Taxation, ' ' New York, Doubleday, Page 

 and Company, 1912, p. 56. 



u Ibid. 



