Government Actions Affecting Land and Property Values

This study demonstrates that despite widely varying methodologies, ample evidence exists that government action has pervasive influence on land and property values. This influence is both positive and negative, and can be substantial, depending on time, place and circumstances. The result is that the impacts of government action, while pervasive, are highly differential. We have reviewed a sizable share—but hardly all—of this evidence. In this study we have focused especially on agricultural policies, local zoning and urban land use restrictions, transportation route location decisions by federal, state and local authorities, the location of amenities such as parks and disamenities such as hazardous waste sites, and briefly on national economic policies and their impacts on farmland values.