Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 86, no. 2214: August 20, 1910

Text version:

August 20, 1910. RECORD AND GUIDE 303 ISi&tiD-Tb RsVLEsrWtiBuiLDijfe AR&rfrrceTUR.E'KoiisEi[ou>DEeaii«»t. Biftofess jufa Themes orGEiten^l llfiERfsi-j PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE EIGHT DOLLARS Communications should be addressed tA a W, SWEET published Every Saturday By THB KECORD AND GUIDE CO. President, CLINTON W. SWEET Treasurer, P. W. DODGB Vloe-Pres. & Genl. Mgr., H. W. DESMOND Secretary, F. T. MILLER Nos. 11 to 15 Bast 24th Street, New York City {Telephone, Madison Square, 4430 to 4433.) "Entered at the Post Office at New York, N. P.. as sccond-plasa matter." Copyrighted. 1910, by The Record ft Guide Co- Vol. LXXXVl. AUGUST 20, 1910. No- 2214 THE statistics of population already announced by the Census Bureau justify certain statements about tbe probable general nature of tbe complete results- It is evi¬ dent that during the past decade population in tbis country has tended to concenti'ate in. the cities at a higher rate than ever before. All the cities whose number of inhabitants has been reported exhibit increases, which average about twenty-five per cent.; and this statement is as true of the East as it is of the West. Cities like Bridgeport, in the State of Connecticut, and Syracuse, in the State of New York, do as well, if not better, than Western cities like Duluth or Grand Rapids. The almost exclusively industrial State of Rhode Island has gained almost one quarter in pop¬ ulation. Apart from the exceptional cases of cities which have been built up in, a rapidly developing agricultural re¬ gion, the increase seems well distributed over all sections of the country and among small cities and large ones. On the other hand, the increase in population settled in rural districts will evidently be smaller than in any previous decade in the history of the country. In all the older States the farming population has at best remained stationary, and this statement is apparently as true of Nebraska and Iowa as it is of Ohio or New York. There are a few States, such as Oklahoma, Texas and Washington, in which large areas of arable laud have come under cultivation during the past ten years, and these communities will exhibit a greater proportional increase in population than any other part of the country. The new area brought under cultiva¬ tion and the increased agricultural inhabitants added there¬ by to the population of the country will be smaller than ever before. The net enlargement of the population will probably amount to about eighteen per cent.; and it will un¬ doubtedly be found that the birth rate has suffered a con¬ siderable drop—particularly among citizens whose parents have been resident for one or two generations on Ameri¬ can soil. If such is the general nature of the census re¬ turns, there can be no doubt as to the future object of American statesmanship. Every effort and every sacrifice should be made, not merely to keep inhabitants on the soil, but to return inhabitants to the soil. In European countries they can afford to allow the cities to absorb most of the in¬ crease in population, because there is already a considerable density of agricultural population; but in the United States there has never been a sufficient number of inhabitants in the farming districts to permit the pi-oper cultivation of the land; and in one way or another labor must be en¬ couraged to go and stay where the interest of a well-bal¬ anced national economic system demands that it should go and stay. -------------•------------- IN the last issue of the Record and Guide Mr. Benjamin C. Marsh calls attention to the fact that the principle of excess condemnation, while valuable, will if adopted only have a limited field of profitable use: it can rarely be Ad¬ vantageously applied to those parts of a city in which land values are already extremely high. In so qualifying the application of the method he is probably right. It may be doubted whether (he City of New York, even if clothed with full legal power to condemn additional land on either side of a new street, could profitabiy open up a new thorough¬ fare through the heart of Manhattan. The expense of the improvement, particularly in those cases which involved the destruction of buildings ten stories or more in height would be so great that the increased value of abutting property would not be sufficient to cover it. It is wholly improbable, for iustajnce, that the thoroughfare half way between Fifth and Sixth avenues recently proposed by Mayor Gaynor, which would cost at least $70,000,000 or $80,000,000, could be paid for by the increased value of a frontage 100 feet deep oil either side of the new avenue. Even if the value of the avenue lots were $10,000 a front foot against a value of $4,000 a front foot for the unimproved street lots, the modern buildings destroyed, the loss in interest and taxes and the expenses of construction would more than account for the difference. The principle of excess condemnation can be applied very much better to such an improvement as the southerly extension of Seventh avenue. In this instance, the cost of the laud condemned would be comparatively small, the value of the buildings destroyed insignificant, and the proportional increase in the value of the land facing the new avenue somewhat larger. On the other hand, it must be remembered that even if the principle of excess condemnation wouUl not work very well in the case of street improvements, which are run through very expensive prop¬ erty, it would work better than the method of assessment for benefits; and wherever such improvements are abso¬ lutely necessary. It should be preferred. It enables the city to appropriate and apply to the cost of the improve¬ ment the really substantial increase of land values result¬ ing therefrom; aud, while this increase might not be enough to pay the cost of the improvement, the resulting burden placed upon the taxpayer would be less under it than under any other practicable method. AT the end of his letter, Mr. Marsh advocates the taxa¬ tion of increases in land values, and there can be little doubt that in so doing he is only the forerunner of a move¬ ment which, during the next ten years, is sure to gain con¬ siderable momentum in various large American cities. The agitation in favor of the increment tax has not as yet ob¬ tained sufficient momentum in this country to demand much attention from the newspapers; and, when it does obtain any considerable momentum, it will undoubtedly, be con¬ fronted by a long, stubborn and perhaps a successful resist¬ ance. Almost every American with a little capital is or is by way of being a real estate speculator; and any pro¬ posal on the part of the State or the municipality to dimin¬ ish the profits derived from such speculation would seem au obvious outrage to this large and infiuential class. It may be remarked, however, in this connection that a cer¬ tain class of real estate owners would have an interest in advocating the increment tax. Assuming that the pro¬ gressive increase of local taxation characteristic of the last few years continues, there will be an increasingly strenuous effort ou the part of some real estate owners to flnd other than present sources of taxation. The constant increase in taxation falls with peculiar weight upon the owners of property that is already improved to the limit, and which cannot be expected to increase thereafter very largely in value. In such cases the increases in taxes are frequently paid by the owner and cannot, except under unusual con¬ ditions, be shifted to the tenant. On the other hand, the increase in taxation is very little of a burden to a rea! estate owner whose property is only partially improved and which, presumably, is deriving increased vaiue from the growth of the city in population and wealth. The line be¬ tween these two classes of property is not a fixed and defi¬ nite one, but the distinction between them is a real distinc¬ tion, because the owner of a piece of land that is already improved with a modern fireproof buildiug has much less to gain from the growth of the city than has the owner of less developed land. The former may well take up the idea of trying to impose this increase of taxation upon the prop¬ erty-owners who can best afford it—that is, upon those who are benefitting most from the growth of the community; and in any event it will undoubtedly be taken up by people who rent but do not own real estate, and who will expect by these means to prevent the real estate owner from shift¬ ing the burden of the steady increase in taxation to the tenant. A GREAT deal has been made of the heavy decrease in building construction, shown by the figures of plans filed for Juiy, particularly in New York City; but the in¬ teresting circumstance about this decrease is that it was deliberately brought about by large institutions which are particularly interested in lending money on New York real estate- The heads ot these institutions reached the conclu¬ sion that there were signs of over-building on Washington Heights and in certain parts of the new mercantile dis-