The term urban sprawl is often used to describe apparent inefficiencies of spatial development, including disproportionate growth of urban areas and excessive leapfrog development. In Switzerland, where open space is a scare resource, sprawl takes place all over the country. It goes at the...

This paper examines the effects of specialisation (within-sector clustering) and diversity (between-sector clustering) on business services profitability and location choice. We apply a semiparametric Poisson sorting model allowing for firm-specific effects. We find that for most firms,...

The Algarve region in Portugal is often considered as one of the most appealing regions for tourism in the country. Its attractive location and moderate climate have since the mid-1960s brought increasing economic prosperity. As a result of the development of mass tourism, available land-use...

Contemporary European urban planning policies aim to mix land uses in compact neighbourhoods. It is presumed that mixing land uses yields socio-economic benefits and therefore has a positive effect on housing values. In this paper, we investigate the impact of mixed land use on housing values...

Combining a spatial equilibrium model with a search-matching unemployment model, this paper analyzes the willingness to pay for regional amenities and the regional quality of life when wages, rents, and unemployment risk compensate for local amenities and disamenities. The results are compared...

All developed countries have programs designed to help agricultural landscapes withstand market forces that might otherwise eliminate them. In peri-urban areas within the United States, minimum lot size zoning is a common tool designed to achieve this objective. Along with differential tax...

A large literature underlines the fact that city sizes are heterogeneous and urban sprawl is not optimal (i.e. cities are too large). Surprisingly, we do not have a clear understanding of these two facts in urban search economics (see Zenou (2009)). Indeed, this literature systematically...

Wise land use is an essential basis for steady economic growth. In many developing countries, land usage policy is one of the most troubled areas. An important issue of land usage policies is the process of land value appraisal. It is necessary to study the experience of developed countries in...

The city of Brussels has a unique position in Europe. It is not only the capital city of the European Union, it also the capital of federal state of Belgium, of its two different language communities and of the government of the Brussels region. Independent of this, the city itself is composed...