Institutional causes of urban and rural sprawl in Switzerland

Open space is a very scarce resource in Switzerland. The Federal Government aims to stabilize the use of settlement area per resident at 400 m². This paper starts by outlining the institutional system of spatial planning in Switzerland. Regressions then explain both the current level of land use per resident as well as the development of this indicator. Factors like cars per resident, the proportion of old people and the rural character of the municipality do increase land use per resident. Case studies show that there are currently hardly any instruments available with which to steer land use beyond the local level. It is concluded that incentives for local administrations should be introduced in order to limit urban and rural sprawl.     

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.     

Environmental impact assessment of urban land use transitions—A context-sensitive approach

Land consumption due to residential development, economic growth and transportation belongs to the most serious environmental pressures on landscapes worldwide, in particular in urbanised areas. Accordingly, the aim of containing the development of land is rated increasingly high on the agenda of environmental policy, at least in densely populated countries such as Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands or the UK. As a result, different strategies and instruments to prevent excessive land consumption are being discussed. However, many of these strategies and instruments adopt a rather general approach, while it seems more effective to define the particular areas where the goal of reducing land consumption is to be pursued. Such an approach must draw on information about how detrimental specific land use transitions are with regard to, for instance, the functionality of soils, water balance or habitat quality at specific locations. This paper introduces a conceptual framework for the impact assessment of land use transition in urban areas which highlights how such information can be acquired. This framework includes the differentiation of two levels of impact assessment: the level of the single land unit and the context level which takes into account regional and aggregated impacts of land use transition bound to the spatial context. The conceptual framework provides a basis to disaggregate (supra-)national policy targets regarding land use, to scale them down to the regional level, and thus to clarify the spatially explicit implications of land use policies.     

Tradable planning permits for land-use control in Germany

In addition to a broad range of qualitative land development objectives, the German Federal Government has committed itself to reduce the growth of settlement and traffic areas from currently 113 ha (2004–2007) to 30 ha per day by 2020. In order to attain this ambitious quantitative goal, our paper presents a market-based policy of ‘tradable planning permits’. This system would control land development by fixing the total amount of open space loss in a period with allocated planning permits, which can be traded between local jurisdictions. Since this approach is based on the cap-and-trade principle, we evaluate the transfer of traditional emission trading concepts to land-use control and explore regulatory options of potential systems: an undifferentiated permit system, a trading-ratio system and variations of zonal permit systems. We subject these alternative approaches to critical evaluation by using a variety of important criteria including efficiency gains, ecological effectiveness, hot spot formation and transaction costs. Finally, we summarize the potentials, limitations and risks of a permit trading system in general while reflecting the ongoing German debate on open space preservation.     

Rural-urban gradient analysis of ecosystem services supply and demand dynamics

Urban regions are important places of ecosystem service demands and, at the same time, are the primary source of global environmental impacts. Although there is broad agreement on the importance of incorporating the concept of ecosystem services into policy strategies and decision-making, the lack of a standardized approach to quantifying ecosystem services at the landscape scale has hindered progress in this direction. Moreover, tradeoffs between ecosystem services and the supply/demand ratio of ecosystem services in urban landscapes have rarely been investigated. In our paper, we present a method to quantify and map the supply and demand of three essential provisioning services - energy, food, and water - along the rural-urban gradient of the eastern German region Leipzig-Halle. This urban region has experienced significant socio-economic dynamics and land use changes since the German reunification in 1990. The results show that both the demand and the supply of ecosystem services changed considerably during the time span under consideration (1990-2007). We identified an increasing supply/demand ratio of food and water but a decreasing supply/demand ratio of energy. In addition, the pattern of ecosystem demands shows a levelling of rural-urban gradients, reflecting profound modifications of traditional rural-urban relationships. The changes of ecosystem service supply gradients are determined more by land use intensity, such as the intensification of agricultural production, than by land cover changes such as urban sprawl. The comparison of supply/demand ratios and rural-urban patterns of ecosystem services can help decision-makers in landscape management in striving for a sustainable balance between resource supply and demand.     

How do centrality,population growth and urban sprawl impact farmland conversion in Norway?

A strong link has been observed between urbanization processes and conversions of farmland to built-up land. Most previous research has addressed such conversion of farmland in relation to the expansion of larger cities. However, broader analysis of both rural and central areas is needed to increase the empirical basis for these claims. Based on GIS analysis of farmland conversions, this paper aims to expand our understanding of how urban sprawl affects conversion of farmland. We find that most farmland in Norway is converted to built-up areas in relation to existing urban settlement areas. In line with population growth, urban areas in the most central municipalities experience the most significant urban sprawl and loss of farmland. Moreover, the remaining farmland is located in the same areas that already have converted the most. These areas also experience significant pressure for continued land take. Assuming current trends continue, future urban sprawl will pose great challenges for the preservation of farmland in land-use planning. New research and policies are required to handle these challenges more effectively.     

The potential effect of national growth-management policy on urban sprawl and the depletion of open spaces and farmland

The debate over the effectiveness of growth-management policies reinforces the importance of empirical studies in this field, which has become not just relevant but also crucial to many places. Israel, through its spatial national-level planning, experienced especially during the 1990s, presents an empirical example that may be used to address a complementary strategy to the one that is most commonly used, as this paper suggests. This strategy is based on an examination of the future potential impact of growth-management tools proposed by national plans on the depletion of open space and farmland versus the consequences expected from the continuation of current trends. Accordingly an appropriate methodology is introduced for implementing this strategy.     

基于Logistic回归模型的城市建设用地扩张影响因素分析——以深圳市为例

分析城市建设用地变化影响因素对于探究城市内在演化规律具有十分重要的意义。本文以深圳市为例,通过建立2002~2007年和2007~2012年两个阶段建设用地变化的Logistic回归模型,从空间角度分析了建设用地变化的规律及原因。研究结果表明,在第一阶段(2002~2007年),深圳市处于快速城市化时期,建设用地变化以新增建设用地为主,主要的解释变量是固定资产投资变化,第二产业产值变化,坡度和高程,而在第二阶段(2007~2012年),深圳市进入高度城市化阶段,建设用地变化表现为存量建设用地空间布局的变化,主要解释变量是固定资产投资变化,第二产业产值变化,人均GDP变化和人口密度变化。     

Experimental evidence on the resilience of a cap & trade system for land consumption in Germany

The German government has committed to substantially limiting future land consumption. Among the most prominently discussed policy instruments is the implementation of a cap & trade system for land consumption, in which a limited amount of certificates is allocated to and traded by municipalities. Since these certificates would be a prerequisite for conducting building projects, this system is expected to reduce urban sprawl and foster the efficient allocation of land consumption projects. While previous empirical studies have supported these projections, the potential fragility of a cap & trade system in the case of macroeconomic shocks has not been considered. In three laboratory experiments, we simulate the impact of economic and budgetary crises within a cap & trade scheme for land consumption. We find that a market-based system succeeds in compensating macroeconomic disturbances with only minor welfare losses. Certificate prices in auctions and trading are somewhat more volatile before shocks, yet normalize afterwards. Trading volumes and the specifics of project realizations remain largely unaffected. Unrelated to the macroeconomic shocks, auction and market prices persistently diverge, leading to income redistributions to the state. Overall, our evidence supports the introduction of a market-based certificate scheme to reduce land consumption in Germany due to its resilience against potential shocks.     

The ‘credibility thesis’ and its application to property rights: (In)Secure land tenure,conflict and social welfare in China

Debates over tenure insecurity have been divided between those favoring private, marketable, and formalized property rights versus champions of grassroots’ customary and communal arrangements. By positing the “credibility thesis”, this article argues that it might be more insightful to move beyond concepts of formal and informal, private and common, or secure and insecure institutions, to leave the discussion about institutional form for a discussion about function. The notion of credibility does so by drawing attention to institutional function over time and space rather than to a desired form postulated by theory or political conviction. Apart from furthering the theoretical foundations on credibility and institutional functionalism, this article aims to develop its methodology and empirical study by taking China as a case study, with particular reference to its rural land-lease system, which is perceived to be highly insecure due to forced evictions and government intervention. Paradoxically, the study finds significant social support for the rural land-lease system and a low level of conflict. These findings might indicate that the form of the Chinese rural lease system (insecure tenure) is the outcome of its present function (provision of social welfare). Simultaneously, it was also found that when conflict does occur expropriation is a prime cause for it.     

Managing urban growth in a transforming China: Evidence from Beijing

Managing urban growth in the current rapid urbanization process has become a key issue for land use policy in transformation China. This paper maps and assesses the performance of urban containment strategies in China, looking at the case of Beijing over a 19-year period (1990–2009). The analysis shows that to a large extent containment strategies perform well in terms of concentrating urban growth in planned suburban areas and promoting compact development. However, the unexpected growth in the rural–urban fringe and the decreased compactness of the fringes of the mixed urban areas and planned peripheral constellations caused by dispersed and illegal development suggest that the municipal containment strategies are being challenged by local development activities. Most sprawling developments at the local level are favoured by the new trend towards local autonomy and fiscal responsibility in the current transformation process. The results reveal that municipal growth control might not be achieved by all local jurisdictions when local economic motivations are involved. Particularly, urban sprawl has been fuelled by the development of urban real estate which can create significant revenues for local government and private developers. In the interest of future policy development, the management capacity of current containment strategies should be enhanced to mitigate the negative effects of market-led development in the present transformation context.     

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.     

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.     

Landscape patterns of development under two alternative scenarios: Implications for conservation

The spatial pattern of urban development has important ecological and conservation implications. Urban sprawl, characterized by scattered and low-density urban development, is commonly criticized for its negative ecological impact. In response, growth management policies have been proposed in order to promote compact development, which is generally considered more favorable from an ecological perspective. Spatial simulations of land cover change are useful for comparing urban development scenarios and their potential effects. One aspect that has not received much attention is how the rate of development may affect differences between compact development and urban sprawl in terms of their potential impact to biodiversity conservation at the landscape scale. Our goal in this study was to compare the spatial pattern and landscape-scale conservation and ecological implications of sprawling development (expected under unregulated development) versus compact development (promoted by growth management policies) at different development rates. We focused on Israel's Mediterranean region—a region characterized by high human population density and heterogeneous land cover. Using a cellular automata model, DINAMICA-EGO, we calibrated and validated an urban development model for the period between 1998 and 2007. Using this period as a reference, we simulated two scenarios 20 years into the future: unregulated (resulting in a more sprawling development pattern) versus regulated development (resulting in a more compact development pattern). For each scenario we analyzed a range of development rates, and compared built-up area patterns, and several landscape-level attributes of natural habitats, conservation priority areas, and protected areas. We found that at development rates comparable to those observed during 1998–2007, there was no major difference between the two scenarios. At higher development rates, some differences between the scenarios emerged: natural core areas were more fragmented and smaller in their extent, and a higher proportion of conservation priority areas were expected to undergo development in the unregulated scenario. Overall, the regulated scenario was more favorable for conservation. Since the regulated and unregulated scenarios exhibited only minor differences in lower development rates, modifications to policy measures included in the regulated scenario should be considered in order improve its effectiveness.