Land Market Monitoring - Why is it important?

Around the country -- and, in fact, around the world -- local, regional, state and even national governments are paying more attention to the effects of new growth: where it goes, what it looks like, how it relates to transportation and other infrastructure needs, and its effect on the environment and natural resources. As a result, the governments of a growing number of jurisdictions have imposed land use controls in attempts to channel growth into certain areas and away from others.

There at least two important and related implications to the use of such land use controls. First, there is ample and compelling evidence that growth management can adversely affect land and housing markets. Second, the adverse effects of growth management can be limited if not eliminated by paying careful attention to land supplies and housing production.

Despite these advantages, few local governments devote the resources necessary to develop advanced monitoring systems. Moreover, many metropolitan areas have been unable to achieve sufficient intergovernmental cooperation to assemble a metropolitan-wide monitoring system. Although the important conceptual and practical techniques in the development and use of market systems still need further advancement, the potential value of comparing data and data-development techniques across metropolitan areas has yet to be fully exploited.