Public Policies and Land Use
Land markets work through the private interactions of individual buyers and sellers. Groups of people,especially groups working through their governmental institutions,can affect the way land is used. We provide first a brief catalog of these mean and then set up a simple example to illustrate each one:
1 Working through land markets: Both public and private groups (as well as individuals, for that matter) can simply work through the private land market,buying,selling,exchanging,or otherwise engaging in voluntary transactions that affect the way land is used.
2 Eminent domain: The power of eminent domain essentially means the power that recognized political authorities have to condemn property for a public purpose. Condemnation involves the forced appropriation of property and must be accompanied by fair compensation. This is a power possessed by federal and state government and usually delegated by them to local governments and to some quasi-governmental organization,such as electric companies.