LAND ECONOMICS 
129 
of the utilization of land in agriculture have more than offset the 
growth of population. This has in general been true with 
respect to the world as a whole, and this is one of the causes of 
agricultural distress. 
In Chicago and in New York City great attention has been 
paid to very high land values, while little attention has been paid 
to declining and low land values. The prepossession of 
economists, and for that matter the general public, is seen in the 
frequent use of the term unearned increment with but little use 
of the term unearned decrement. We simply do not know the 
facts that we should know. A vast amount of research is needed 
to give us an adequate knowledge of the facts. We do know, 
however, that decrements are great and significant, as well as 
frequently disastrous. At a meeting of the Chicago Regional 
Planning Association held about two years ago one of the 
speakers stated that in his belief decrements in land values in 
Chicago in recent years had equaled increments in land values. 
The present writer would be inclined to doubt if that would 
hold good just now. But here again we do not know the facts. 
We do know that there are many attractive towns and cities in 
the country where, as the saying is, one can scarcely give away 
land, and where it will not yield what it has cost to bring it to 
its present state of ripeness for utilization. 
The term ripening costs in land utilization is new. It cannot 
be found in any treatise on general economics, and yet it is 
something of great significance both in theory and in practice 
and unquestionably must modify more or less the popular ideas 
in regard to the income or rent of land. Ripening costs which are 
a common feature of business generally have not been thoroughly 
analyzed with respect to land. Broadly conceived, ripening costs 
occur when land is ripening from one use to a higher use, for it 
takes time to change from one use to another. They consist of 
expenditures made, or income sacrificed, during this period. If 
the holder of the land is a private individual, the costs are in 
the form of taxes, special assessments, and interest foregone, 
which must be paid or sacrificed even when there is no income 
from the land. These costs of ripening use are particularly 
significant in the case of land because of the large investment 
and longer period of time required to change from one use to 
another.