Evaluating the effectiveness of land use master plans in built-up land management: A case study of the Jinan Municipality,eastern China

China has implemented land use master plans to strictly control built-up land usage. The effective evaluation of land use master plan on controlling construction land is the premise of monitoring and early warning of planning implementation. It is also the basis for planning revision and further implementation of territorial spatial planning. In this study, we established a comprehensive index system based on three aspects: scale management, annual growth rhythm control, and spatial layout. We then analyzed the consistency between the actual situation for built-up land and the previous land use master plan of the Jinan Municipality in the Shandong Province of eastern China. The results showed that the master plan effectively controlled the scale of built-up land sprawl, such that the annual growth rhythm control level periodically increased over time. They also indicated the low efficiency of the built-up land spatial layout control. Overall, the previous land use master plan in Jinan had notable impacts. We recommend that land policy makers should adjust control standards and implementation intensity for spatial planning in the future to achieve scientific and effective planning for the management of construction land.     

Compliance of land cover changes with municipal land use planning: Evidence from the Lisbon metropolitan region (1990–2007)

In the past few decades, urbanisation has become a major phenomenon in European cities, thus representing one of the key human land cover changes with socio-economic and environmental impacts. In the Lisbon metropolitan region it is estimated that 17% of natural and farmland have been transformed into artificial areas. Since the end of 1990s, specific EU guidelines have been issued to contain urban sprawl and preserve agricultural land. Spatial planning in Portugal obviously is integrating these assumptions into the statutory land-use master plans. But what is the performance of this land use planning system regarding land cover evolution itself? Based on the Lisbon metropolitan region (LMR), one of the major areas of urban growth in Portugal, we examine spatio-temporal land cover patterns between 1990 and 2007 by integrating cross-matrix analysis, spatial metrics, and gradient analysis. Additionally, we overlay these land cover dynamics with municipal master plans that regulate land development in order to assess the compliance levels of this land-use regulatory system. Results indicate that: artificial areas are growing by coalescence and/or by scattered development along an urban–rural gradient; agricultural land is reducing and fragmentation is increasing to enlarge peri-urban spaces; there are high levels of conversion of agricultural land into urban land in protected areas, thus showing a lack of compliance to the land use regulatory system visible in the existing gaps between the original land-use assignments of the master plan and the actual developments.     

Measuring urban sprawl and exploring the role planning plays: A shanghai case study

Measuring the degree of urban sprawl largely depends on the local context and available data. This research establishes a multidimensional index which combines city expansion, urban compactness and urban form to measure sprawl. Urban planning, as part of the state-led growth approach, has exerted dramatic impact on city growth in China. Recent studies have discussed the role of planning in city growth. However, measuring the impact of planning on sprawl, has not been conducted. Taking Shanghai as a case study, this paper builds a multidimensional index to measure the spatio-temporal characteristics of urban sprawl in Shanghai from 1990 to 2010. It finds that urban sprawl was more serious in 2000s than in the 1990s, and the sprawl also presents spatial heterogeneity within different areas of the city. While quantifying the role of planning in urban sprawl, this study adopts the Geo-Detector based on spatial variation analysis of the geographical strata in order to assess the impact of planning on urban sprawl. It finds that planning is strongly correlated with urban sprawl, in other words, urban sprawl is kind of a "planned sprawl" in Shanghai. The research concludes with future planning policies necessary for a more sustainable and compact development pattern.     

Will urban farming survive the growth of African cities: A case-study in Kampala (Uganda)?

Despite the fact that urban farming is widespread in many African cities there is not yet a clearly defined view on how to deal with these activities in urban planning and management. On the basis of field interviews in the rapidly expanding metropolitan area of Kampala (Uganda) three different urban farming types were identified: subsistence farming, garden farming and commercial farming. These three urban farming types have their own spatial organisation logic and each interact in a specific way with urban expansion. In this paper the possible outcome of three alternative urban management strategies for Kampala (urban sprawl, urban infilling and a combination of both) were translated into spatially explicit land use scenarios for the years 2020 and 2030. This allowed to evaluate the spatial impact of each scenario on the future viability of the different urban farming practices. Urban sprawl fragments large open spaces thereby reducing the space for subsistence farming with 80% by 2030. Urban infilling, on the other hand, decreases the opportunities for small to medium scale garden and commercial farming by a possible reduction of 62% of the available farming land by 2030. The results of the analysis are useful for urban planners as they give insight in the potential future effects of proposed planning strategies on urban farming.     

Assessing the fragmentation of construction land in urban areas: An index method and case study in Shunde, China

The fragmentation of construction land due to decentralised urban development, disorderly mixed land use, and large-scale transportation infrastructure poses a threat to urban integrity. There is a need to quantify the fragmentation level in a consistent way for inclusion in planning-related decisions. In the context of China's urban sprawl, this study develops a quantitative and intuitive index approach that planners can use to analyse multiple fragmentation features of construction land within urban areas. The approach can be used in planning policy reviews for timely land-use assessment and can be integrated into urban planning processes for developing strategic land-use scenarios. The method was applied in Shunde, a typical urban area in southern China, and construction-land fragmentation and its impacts on environmental quality were analysed. The results show that the entire built-up area in Shunde displays a high level of fragmentation. Patches of industrial and rural residence have been identified specifically higher fragmentation level. The shortage of available construction land makes land consolidation within built-up areas very important in planning Shunde's future development. Moreover, the land shortage requires the progressive reduction of construction land fragmentation. The results of the study also indicate that although land fragmentation has been affected by transportation infrastructure and the existence of rivers and hills in this region, decentralised decisions from hierarchical local governance regimes have greatly exacerbated this situation. Shunde provides examples of typical land-use problems associated with quasi-urbanised regions in China; construction-land fragmentation is a greater determinant for the sustainable development of urban and rural areas than construction-land growth.     

基于“多规合一”的城镇开发边界划定方法探析——以常熟市辛庄镇为例

随着城镇化的快速推进,外延式扩张发展模式产生的城市蔓延等问题对区域土地的有效开发,空间的优化利用和可持续发展造成了重大影响。有效划定城镇开发边界,控制城镇空间扩张是苏州空间规划改革的重点任务,有利于国土空间格局优化以及弥补当前城镇开发边界的研究空白。本文以常熟市辛庄镇为例,在阐释城镇开发边界概念内涵及借鉴城市开发边界划定方法的基础上,基于"多规融合"的规划理念新视角,按照"多规合一、划管结合"的思路探讨镇域层面城镇开发边界的划定方法与流程,最后在此基础上针对城镇开发边界划定方法提出管理制度建议。因此,城镇开发边界划定是多项规划统筹的过程,也是平衡城镇发展限制和发展潜力,平衡空间和土地的过程。     

The political economy of wine: How terroir and intra-sector dynamics affect land use in Spain

This paper provides a constructive critique of Corrine Cash's paper “Good governance and strong political will: Are they enough for transformation?”, published in volume 58 of Land Use Policy in 2016. By focusing on how intra-sector dynamics influence land use policies in conflicts revolving around urban sprawl, this paper aims to complement and, to some extent, widen the analytic lens deployed by Cash. The examination of the Spanish wine sector and its lack of zoning policies confirms Cash's argument about the need to go beyond discourses of ‘good governance’ and ‘strong political will’ to understand the dynamics underpinning real spatial processes. However, this exploration underscores the need to add layers of complexity to land use analyses, showing the relevance of intra-sector conflict and logics. In complicating any simplistic reduction of urban sprawl conflicts to rural–urban oppositions, the paper ultimately calls for a more dynamic and multiscalar planning theory to address complex governance issues.     

Environmental policy integration: Towards a communicative approach in integrating nature conservation and urban planning in Bulgaria

As urban areas continue to expand, the need to consider nature conservation objectives in planning is growing. Policy makers across Europe recognize that effective nature conservation requires an integrated approach to land use planning that includes relevant ecological and spatial knowledge. Although a number of such integrated approaches have been developed, many local authorities in Europe encounter important institutional barriers to this integration. This is particularly true for countries in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) like Bulgaria. The post-socialist transformation in Bulgaria led to intensified urban growth and local authorities struggle to find a balance between environmental and socio-economic interests. Meanwhile, the Environmental Policy Integration ‘principle’ (EPI) has been gaining prominence in Europe, aiming to address the trade-offs between environmental and economic incentives. Research highlights that successful EPI depends on institutional processes within different economic sectors and across governmental scales. These processes have not yet been comprehensively studied in the CEE and in Bulgaria. This article assesses the EPI process in urban planning in Bulgaria and identifies the institutional approaches that may contribute best to EPI in urban planning. Using the example of the “Corner Land” project in the city of Burgas, we discuss the key challenges that the local authorities face in addressing nature conservation in land use plans. The findings indicate that EPI is to a high degree constrained by the lack of an efficient communicative process across fragmented organizational structures throughout the entire planning process. While a procedural approach to EPI appears to be prevalent it is concluded that a communicative approach is urgently needed if the sustainability of urban plans is to be safeguarded and negative impacts on nature prevented.     

2017年土地科学研究重点进展评述及2018年展望——土地资源、利用与规划分报告

研究目的：总结2017 年国内外土地资源、利用与规划方面的研究进展,展望2018 年国内研究趋势。研究方法：文献调研法。研究结果：2017 年国外研究主要集中在土地资源的保护与管理、土地生态问题与生态恢复、土地利用变化驱动及影响、土地利用规划观念与技术等方面;国内研究侧重于土地资源配置、土地生态、土地利用及其评价、土地利用管控以及规划理论与实践创新等方面。研究结论：2017 年土地资源、利用与规划领域在基础理论层面进一步基于时空锥理论研究了规划机理,提出了科学认知 “多规合一”的理念,初步探索了供给侧结构性改革和土地利用规划的关系;在实践层面提出了“一张蓝图”、“多规合一”的技术路径,探讨了空间规划体系的建构与规划的核心任务,探索了村级土地利用规划的现存问题与未来编制工作重点。创新具有中国特色的土地利用规划理论和方法、构建国土空间开发保护制度、推动“土地用途管制”向“国土空间用途管制”发展、推进基于生态文明建设视角的空间规划体系创新、深化土地节约集约利用、土地领域供给侧结构性改革研究将是2018 年及未来土地资源、利用与规划领域着重研究的方向。     

Do urban centers support regional goals? An assessment of regional planning in Denver

Metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) in the United States have instituted regional strategies to encourage development around mixed use, higher density urban centers in response to air quality and transportation challenges. Because MPOs lack regulatory authority, these organizations have relied on voluntary approaches to coordinate regional planning for land use and transportation. While scholars have examined voluntary regional planning, there have been few studies of the urban centers concept. In Denver, Colorado, the MPO’s Metro Vision plan promotes local adoption of centers supported through incentives. In this study, we examine whether existing conditions and future plans for centers support regional goals. Our approach relies on interviews and spatial data to categorize centers and evaluates whether each type of center is likely to achieve regional goals for transit, design, density, diversity, and destination. This work generated a typology of five center types: historic town centers, greenfield, industrial, commercial, and suburban mixed use. We find that the adopted centers fall short of meeting regional goals under existing conditions, but future plans for center types show promise. This typology offers more refined strategies and targeted incentives for other metropolitan regions considering a centers policy to support regional goals. There is also a need for better regional monitoring and improved indicators to assess progress.     

Containing urban sprawl—Evaluating effectiveness of urban growth boundaries set by the Swiss Land Use Plan

Urban containment strategies are one of the best-known planning instruments for managing urban sprawl. The two main types of such strategies are greenbelts and urban growth boundaries. The boundaries set by the Land Use Plan in Switzerland have been applied since 1970. We evaluate the effect and success of this strategy by analysing expansion of developed land, change in number of buildings, and building density within and outside building zones in four Swiss municipalities 1970–2000. Our results show that the boundary restricted most development to building zones and promoted increased building density. Generally, building density increased in the building zones but decreased outside of building zones. For more efficiency and success, the political institutions should specify explicit goals for development inside and outside of building zones, and develop new instruments for guiding development outside of building zones.     

Urban spill over vs. local urban sprawl: Entangling land-use regulations in the urban growth of China's megacities

Rather than a bad case of urban sprawl, the physical expansion of China's megacities may be viewed as a combination of ‘urban spill over’ and ‘local urban sprawl’. This paper reviews land use regulations in their institutional context and argues that conflicts in land use regulation are related to ideologies of land ownership and embedded in different planning doctrines. These hypotheses are investigated with special reference to Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong Province in southern China. The evidence suggests that entangled land use regulations for “urban” and “rural” land have imposed serious constraints on urban growth, while the contradictions of different policies and regulations in the use of rural lands for urban construction have led to intensive and unhealthy competition among stakeholders. As a result, not only have the costs of land conversion from rural to urban uses increased, but the spatial development of Guangzhou has been distorted. The implications of these failures for future policy are discussed with emphasis on the reform of the land use regulation system.     

Assessing land use plan implementation: Bridging the performance-conformance divide

The assessment of land use plan implementation is a contentious issue. The debate centers on whether the crucial evaluation element is conformance of development to plan directives or alternatively, plan performance, i.e. the degree to which the plan is actually used. An analytic framework combining both conformance and performance in the evaluation of (regional) land use plans is applied to the case of the Central District Plan in Israel. Qualitative and quantitative simulation methods are exploited. Qualitative analysis reveals that both performance and conformance are greater than indicated by non-contextualized, numeric evaluations. Additionally, high conformance does not necessarily imply good plan performance. Quantitative simulation suggests that plan performance with respect to land values and densities is initially pronounced as expectations for development are subdued but subsequently tends to wane merging with the counterfactual trend. Findings imply that plan assessment needs to consider the transaction costs of land use re-designation and actors’ perceptions of the probability that plan amendments will be approved. These perceptions differ across actors as a function of the political influence that they wield.     

基于遥感影像的北京市城市规划区内农用地控制成效分析

研究目的：检验北京市城市规划区内农用地的规划控制成效。研究方法：遥感影像分析、GIS空间分析、实证分析。研究结果：规划农用地边界在控制农用地减少方面的作用十分有限;与1983年总体规划相比,1993年总体规划在农用地边界控制方面的成效略有改善。研究结论：城市规划区内农用地的规划控制尚存在较大问题。可能的调整手段包括：（1）加强对城市建设“界外选址”的控制;（2）在总体规划中充分考虑村镇居民点的扩展规模;（3）建立科学的城市人口规模预测方法;（4）加强农用地规划中的公共参与和公众监督。     

A review of spatial planning in Ghana's socio-economic development trajectory: A sustainable development perspective

This study provides a review of spatial planning in the context of Ghana's socio-economic development trajectory. Spatial planning has been integral to the economic policies of the country since colonial rule. Yet, its role has been overshadowed by the domain of socio-economic planning. Drawing from published literature, policy documents, legislative frameworks and interviews, this study reveals the different context and scope within which spatial planning has been implemented in Ghana, and the successes and failures thereof. While the colonial governments employed spatial planning on limited scale and for exploitative purposes, post-colonial governments have implemented broad-based planning grounded in the ‘genuine’ aspiration to promote a spatially balanced development. This study argues that post-independence planning has not been successfully implemented compared to pre-independence planning due to a myriad of factors including rapid urban growth, inadequate staffing, low capacity, lack of institutional coordination, political interference in planning, complex land tenure and evolving land markets among others. Consequently, urban centres in Ghana are beset with problems such as poor environmental conditions, poor infrastructure and service delivery, and uncontrolled growth; and these are inimical to sustainable urban development. The study lauds renewed efforts to transform planning in the spirit of sustainable development through the national urban policy framework and a proposed land use and spatial planning bill; the latter proposes planning based on spatial development framework, and a repeal of an obsolete 1945 planning ordinance that has underlain planning since. It is argued that if supported and harmonised the two initiatives present the best planning framework in the 21st century Ghana.     

Public policy change and its impact on urban expansion: An evaluation of 265 cities in China

Public policies play a vital role in shaping our cities. However, the impact of public policies on the spatial expansion of urban areas needs to be better understood in order to achieve better policy outcomes. During the period of China’s economic reform, the central government of China has made many changes in three sets of public policies—regional development policies, the household registration (hukou) system, and urban land and housing market policies—to promote coordinated development of small, medium and large cities. This study aims to examine the effects of these public policy changes on urban expansion across 265 Chinese cities at or above prefecture level. We first quantify the spatial patterns of urban areas and evaluate the extent of urban sprawl of the 265 cities from 1995 to 2015 using multi-temporal land cover data. These cities are classified into six categories according to a city tier system used in China. Through a set of individual fixed-effects models, we then explore how changes in the three sets of policies have influenced urban expansion differently across different-tier cities. Results show that sprawling patterns of urban expansion, which have been more prominent in small and medium sized cities since 2000, are associated with shifts in policies to support stronger economic and population growth as well as real estate development. Our findings highlight the need for policymakers to take a holistic approach by considering the size of cities together with their social, environmental, and economic characteristics in order to minimise inequality and achieve coordinated urban development goals.     

Water safety plan integrated to the land use and occupation measures: Proposals for Caraguatatuba-SP,Brazil

Water Safety Plan is an international tool developed by the World Health Organization to enable the implementation of better water quality guarantees regarding human health issues. This current tool´s template deals with water quantity suring the occurrence of floods and droughts only as emergency situations. The key issues of this paper are how we may integrate proactive drought and flood planning into the so-called Water Safety Plans. The city of Caraguatatuba, north coast of the State of São Paulo, Brazil, has a large tourist flow a high rate of population growth, and is currently drafting the Water Safety Plan. This article aims to analyze the Caraguatatuba Water Safety Plan and compare its elaboration steps and respective contents to the international practices related to the management of water conflicts with spatial guidelines in order to propose improvements. The methodology starts with an overall view of the Brazilian water system and steps and procedures of Caraguatatuba Water Safety Plan. The case of Caraguatatuba was compared with international practices, and more detailed comparison with a Spanish practice. The key findings were: the need of establishing a legal framework to ensure the plans’ successful implementation and accomplishment of recording the occurrence of extreme water events and its incorporation in the diagnostic step in the planning system, and the elaboration of multiple progressive scenarios establishing land use and occupation guidelines. The spatial guidelines improvements are: specific construction criteria for flood zones, targeting activities compatible with flood zones, patrimony insurance for flood management and creation of catchment points for temporary supply, limitation of non-essential uses as swimming pool and car washers, reduce irrigated land for agricultural crops, adoption an exchange bank for the granting of water resources, proportional fee by water quality and improve water use in industrial processes for drought management.     

Delineation of a permanent basic farmland protection area around a city centre: Case study of Changzhou City,China

The delineation of permanent basic farmland will safeguard the production baseline of China’s agricultural development by securing easily appropriated, high-quality farmland surrounding urban areas, thereby strictly controlling the use of farmland (especially high-quality farmland surrounding urban areas) facing accelerated urban expansion. This study researched the delineation of permanent basic farmland in a typical region undergoing rapid urbanization. By constructing a systematic classification model, farmland was classified into matrix, edge, and island farmlands in order to analyze farmland contiguity and fragmentation. Based on the indicator requirements of various plans related to farmland, an evaluation indicator system was constructed in order to develop an evaluation model for comprehensive farmland productivity. From the perspective of farmland spatial contiguity and highly efficient productivity, a delineation model for permanent basic farmland was proposed to delimit the permanent protection and utilization boundaries for high-quality farmland around urban areas. The results show the following: (1) matrix and edge farmlands can intuitively display farmland contiguity characteristics; (2) comprehensive farmland productivity was closely related to farmland spatial patterns, supporting infrastructure, and policy management and protection; and (3) there was a high degree of spatial overlap between contiguous and highly productive farmland. The model took both comprehensive farmland productivity and spatial clustering into consideration in order to delineate permanent basic farmland, which is a beneficial factor in protecting farmland quality and safeguarding sustainable farmland utilization. It can also be used as a control line to limit urban sprawl, guide urban cluster development, and improve economical and intensive urban land use.     

Major issues in Indonesia's urban land development

This article addresses issues of urban land development in Indonesia, including urban land use; ownership and transfers; land taxation; and land information systems. Until very recently, urban land-use planning in Indonesia was largely top-down in character and neglected to include the public as a stakeholder. This article argues that the role of government in urban land-use development needs to change at all levels and that the capacity of local government in land-use management needs to be strengthened. The presence of private developers in urban development should be encouraged. Land development permits—as a means of urban development control—while they may still be necessary should be granted primarily in relation to urban land-use plans (RUTR). Land taxation instruments have not been effectively applied to control land utilisation in the cities. Data and information on land affairs are lacking.