The changes of land use patterns and urban structures could be seen as the dynamic result of the trade off between public and private interests. Thereby the land use change is to some extent unpredictable. The focus in the current study is to measure the importance of spatial location factors regarding new residential and commercial buildings in relation to existing urban amenities and political guidelines. The relative importance of the location factors was studied by multinomial regression analysis. Results from this study reveal that the location profiles of new urban object types attained here indicate strong correspondence with local political land use guidelines and to clustering. The spatial distribution of new urban settlements does not in general correspond to the monocentric urban scheme where firms and residents locate in spatial proximity to urban centres.