ANNUAL CONGRESS 2025

Why land policy ignores the social dimension of urban densification

Not scheduled

20m

Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul

Oral Track 02 | PLANNING AND LAW

Speaker

Prof. Jean-david Gerber (Institute of geography, University of Bern)

Description

This presentation builds on the main findings of GoverDense, a 4-year research project examining the critical issue of urban densification and its intersection with land policy, emphasizing the often-overlooked social dimension of sustainability. By drawing on empirical data from eight case studies in the Netherlands and Switzerland, we provide a nuanced analysis of the land policy challenges associated with densification policies and their implications for urban sustainability.
The concept of land policy widens the traditional perspective of spatial planning by considering further aspects, in particular private law instruments such as property rights. In practice, land policy legitimizes new forms of “performance-oriented planning,” which serve to fulfill a broad spectrum of purposes – from better positioning a city in international competition to supporting socio-political goals – and match a wide array of ideological positions – from progressive to neoliberal-inspired forms of state interventions.
This presentation analyzes how the shift toward such land policy creates profound dilemmas for municipalities in charge of implementing densification objectives. It shows how these dilemmas have direct implications for urban sustainability. More specially, we identify dilemmas about: (1) the target group of land policy; (2) the time horizon of land policy; (3) the strategic objective of public real-estate asset acquisition and management; (4) the strategic use of land policy instruments; (5) the financing of land policy; and (6) the way land policy deals with land rents.
We maintain that awareness about the hybrid nature of present-day land policy – at the meeting point between progressive municipalism and neoliberalism, between public and private law, between comprehensive and project-based planning – is key for using it safely. As a strategy, land policy does not provide guidelines to municipal planners; it offers a broad spectrum of ideological references and policy instruments that involved actors can activate according to their needs. Only the recognition of its inherently political nature – as public interventions always create winners and losers, taking something somewhere to give it elsewhere – can prevent the risk of planning being captured by price considerations to the detriment of all the dimensions of urban quality that are not directly reflected by the market.

References

Bouwmeester, J., Gerber, J.-D., Hartmann, T., & Ay, D. (2023). Non-compliance and non-enforcement: An unexpected outcome of flexible soft densification policy in the Netherlands. Land Use Policy, 126(106525).
Gerber J.-D. (2016) The managerial turn and municipal land-use planning in Switzerland – evi-dence from practice. Planning Theory & Practice, 17(2): 192-209.
Götze, V., Bouwmeester, J. A., & Jehling, M. (2023). For whom do we densify? Explaining in-come variation across densification projects in the region of Utrecht, the Netherlands. Urban Studies.
Verheij, J., Ay, D., Gerber, J.-D., & Nahrath, S. (2023). Ensuring Public Access to Green Spaces in Urban Densification: The Role of Planning and Property Rights. Planning Theory & Practice, 24(3), pp. 342–365.