The price of land in Honolulu is higher than in any other major US urban area. This paper examines several determinants of the supply and demand for land and discusses their likely influence on Honolulu's land price. It utilises comparisons between demand and supply conditions in Honolulu and in...

In the mid 1960s there were about 22 000 single-family leasehold homes in Honolulu. Dissatisfaction with leasehold led to reform legislation in 1967, allowing lessees to buy leased land. By 1991 less than 5000 lessees remained. This paper examines why landowners elected to lease rather than sell...

The Hawaiian Homes Commission Act of 1920 set aside marginal lands for Native Hawaiian homesteads with restrictions on their alienability and use, and funds for their development. The Act preserved all leased government sugar lands for the plantations, and preserved homesteads and federal...

The Hawaiian Home Lands program enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1921 placed 200,000 acres of government land in trust for the use of native Hawaiians. This program - now with assets valued at well over $700 million - long ago evolved into a special type of public housing program in which the...

In the mid 1960s there were about 22,000 single-family leasehold homes in Honolulu. Dissatisfaction with leasehold led to reform legislation in 1967, allowing lessees to buy leased land. By 1991 less than 5000 lessees remained. This paper examines why landowners elected to lease rather than sell...

In the mid-1960s 26 percent of the single-family homes in Honolulu were on leased land. Dissatisfaction with leasehold led to reform legislation in 1967, allowing lessees to buy leased land. By 1991 only 3.6 percent of the homes were on leased land. We examine why landowners elected to lease...

The Land Reform Act as amended was a misapplication of eminent domain because it violated both the public use and just compensation clauses of the Fifth Amendment. There was no rational nexus linking eminent domain with the public purpose of reducing the price of land; the high price was due to...