Spencer Heath Archive

Item 1049

Three pages of 3-ring binder paper typed and amended in pencil by Heath

1930s?

Land owners, as public officers renting sites and locations to land users, afford the only market there is in which publicly created benefits can be distributed justly for value received and at rates socially and not arbitrarily set and determined.

     All public benefits allocated otherwise, and not in accordance with value received, are beneficial to some only by being detrimental to others. No social values can thus arise.

     The value of land, as expressed in net rent actually received, is the only net value that arises out of public or governmental operations. The only social values resulting from government are those that manifest themselves in the value of the sites and locations within the territory served by it.

     Changes in the amount, scope or form of governmental activity can be socially beneficial only when they lift some of the limitations on the use of and demand for land and thus raise rental values.

     Land administration, land lord-ism, by merchandising publicly created benefits, transforms them from special and private privileges precariously held into social and public values justly apportioned and dispensed and securely enjoyed.