This paper uses hazard analysis tools to examine the factors that influence the lifespans of tax increment finance (TIF) districts. As the nation emerges from its real estate crisis, it is clear that property value recovery will be slow. Further, in those communities where tax increment is used as a development tool, it appears that the growth of increments generated in TIF designated areas will be much slower than anticipated. This in turn suggests that the tax increment district (TID) lifespans will have ...

This case study examines a campus-community partnership conducted by Clark University, the University Park Partnership. Since 1995, this partnership has focused on improving educational opportunities and other neighborhood amenities for residents of the target zone. The study compares developments in the market for housing inside and outside of the target zone after establishment of the partnership. Although the turnover of properties changed little, owner-occupancy within the target zone increased substan...

In collaboration with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, the International Center for Land Policy Studies and Training (ICPLST) decided to invite some of the best thinkers on land and land issues to prepare papers on land-related topics that would be important between the present time and the year 2015. We believe that the papers, now chapters, in this volume have accomplished the initial goal of the conference to encourage decision makers to think about land in the context of a changing world. We think ...

The discussion on the role of universities in the community has come under sharp focus during the last two decades. Universities are increasingly being seen as engines for economic growth and community development. Although an intuitive understanding of the possibilities of positive impact of universities on the community is widely shared, actual research on such impacts is inadequate. In addition, impacts are often understood more in terms of the general economy and much less in terms of impacts on specifi...

This study offers a detailed parcel-level evaluation of the property tax base within the City of Detroit. For a variety reasons, Detroit’s tax base has narrowed and this has resulted in a decline in the revenue-raising potential of the property tax. Further, state and city policies have created significant horizontal inequities. Despite these challenges, the potential use of special assessments offers an opportunity to broaden the tax base, reduce horizontal inequities, and while at the same time reducin...

This paper examines how school trusts that sell land for urban development may financially benefit by being patient and holding land for the longer term rather than selling it for shorter term gains. Three basic characteristics of the urban land market provide for such benefits including the underlying price path to urban development, real estate cycles, and site rent. In addition, active management and time tranching may be further means by which patience can benefit school trusts in the long run. The resu...

This paper examines the impact of the recession and the collapse in housing prices on local governments in the United States, focusing particularly on the nation’s largest cities. While the fiscal condition of most state governments is slowly improving, many central cities have only recently begun to feel the full impacts of the economic slowdown and the disruptions to the housing market. The conclusions of this paper are based on a constructed forecasting model that is used to demonstrate that the revenues...

The Lincoln Institute and the African Tax Institute (ATI ), located at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, have formed a joint venture to better understand property-related taxation in Africa. Its goal is to collect data and issue reports on the present status and future prospects of property-related taxes in all 54 African countries, with a primary focus on land and building taxes and real property transfer taxes. Each individual report aims to provide concise, uniform and comparable information on p...

The housing crisis and the Great Recession have placed tremendous fiscal pressure on the nation’s central cities. Cuts in state government fiscal assistance to their local governments, plus shrinking property tax bases are challenging the ability of local governments to continue their current levels of public services. Although the property tax remains the single most important own source of municipal government revenues, the decline in property values and the rising tide of foreclosures suggests that the r...

The study examined mortgage delinquency and foreclosure rates among the owner-occupants of resale-restricted houses and condominiums in community land trusts (CLTs) across the United States and compared CLT results to rates of delinquency and foreclosure among the owner-occupants of conventional market-rate housing reported by the Mortgage Bankers Association’s National Delinquency Survey (MBA). The study also explored practices and policies of CLTs that may help to explain their better performance.

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House price capitalization has long been thought to be a means of testing for efficiency in the local public sector. In this article I argue that the extent of house price capitalization itself may have important economic implications. In doing so I synthesize an emerging literature that explores the conditions under which public and private investments and intergovernmental transfers are capitalized into local house prices and the broader implications of such capitalization. The main insights are: (i) Hous...

This article analyses the impacts derived from the presence of university campuses on land and real estate markets in disperse contexts. Using as case studies the campuses of the University of Brasilia and the Catholic University of Brasilia, the article studies externalities mostly related to the wide accessibility of the campuses in terms of travel time. Using the concepts of magnet and enclave to describe the effects produced, the article examines impacts on land prices in areas from which the main flows...

State government pensions have attracted considerable media and scholarly attention. Less well understood are the nation’s 3,196 locally administered plans. This paper represents a first step toward filling this gap. After reviewing issues common to state and local plans, it summarizes existing data and research on local pensions. Based on their own technical assumptions, local plans are as well funded as their statewide counterparts (Munnell et al., 2011). However, applying a lower discount rate and g...

The paper critically explores the potential for EAH programs to not only meet the needs of universities, but also contribute to the improvement of the communities that reside in “the shadows” of universities. The research seeks to uncover the ways in which EAH programs serve to catalyze relationships between universities and those communities. The authors identify the motivations for and common models of university employer assisted housing (EAH) programs, and use these motivations and models as a framewor...

By the 1910s, Los Angeles had one of the largest urban rail networks in the world. Streetcars dominated urban transit and motivated building and investment. New streetcar construction ceased by 1922 and the system entered a long, slow decline, culminating with elimination in 1963. Does the modern metropolitan area still reflect vestiges of this fifty-year- extinct transport system? In other words, are metropolitan areas sufficiently malleable to allocate capital to current demands? We use data on the locati...

This case study has been prepared as part of the Lincoln Institute’s program on “The City, Universities, and Land.” It has been written by Wim Wiewel (University of Baltimore), based on presentations at a workshop held at the Lincoln Institute for Land Policy on September 18-19, 2005, by Joseph T. Maguire, Jr., John P. McQuaid, and Michael K. Owu (MIT); Gayle Farris (Forest City Enterprises); John Myers (Spaulding & Slye); and Michael Cantalupa (Boston Properties). While every effort has been made to pres...