Land use regulation and social regulation: an unexplored link. Some reflections on the origins and evolution of sprawl in the Veneto “città diffusa”

While the question of social and political regulation (in Polanyi’s sense) in areas characterized by industrial districts and systems of SMEs is well-known, alongside the effects of globalization in such situations, the role of land use regulation as a public policy has been underestimated. The sprawl that connotes these situations (and in particular our case-study, the Veneto region) has usually been intended as the product of a laissez-faire orientation. In our paper, we try instead to demonstrate that sprawl, in the golden age of development, has been intentionally pursued, through specific technical mechanisms and widely accepted policy discourses. The “planned sprawl” has been largely socially shared, and significantly contributed to, by a peculiar embeddedness of the public action in market and reciprocity mechanisms, to social integration and economic effectiveness, until the change of international division of labor, social and cultural transformations, and the rise of severe negative externalities as unintended consequence of the “planned sprawl”. Moreover, the paper discusses the lack of effectiveness of the recent regional reform of territorial planning in coping with the new social and economic requirements, compared to the variety of urban projects based on a governance style.     

Economic evaluation of ecosystem goods and services under different landscape management scenarios

Human-induced changes in the natural environment are affecting the provision of ecosystem goods and services (EGS). Land use plans rarely include the value of public ecosystem services such as climate regulation and biodiversity due to difficulties in valuing these services. In this study, we assessed total economic value for five important ecosystem goods and services under five future land-use scenarios using varying levels of costs, prices and discount rates. Results indicated that at higher discount rates normally applied to commercial activities, and assuming the current prices for goods and services, net present value (NPV) was highest for landscape management scenarios aimed at maximising agricultural production. Potential income from services such as carbon and biodiversity does not offset projected income lost from agriculture due to land-use changes. At higher discount rates, NPV was negative for the two scenarios aimed at enhancing the longer term ecological sustainability of the landscape. These results indicate that income from carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation would need to be considerably higher than current levels in order to justify focusing management of this landscape on ecological outcomes. At lower discount rates (at levels normally associated with public investments), the more ecologically appropriate ‘mosaic farming system’ had the highest NPV, indicating that this type of system might be attractive for investors interested in longer term return horizons or wider public benefits. Higher income from carbon or biodiversity, or increased return from timber by using high value tree species, could potentially make more ecologically appropriate systems profitable at higher discount rates.     

Building resilience: Mainstreaming community participation into integrated assessment of resilience to climatic hazards in metropolitan land use management

Building resilience is critical for metropolitan land use planning to strengthen the ability to cope with and minimize climatic disaster risks. Challenges still remain for metropolitan agencies in identifying the components or metrics for measuring resilience. Particularly, uncertainties in climate change and diversification in local contexts compel urban planners to mainstream community participation, indigenous knowledge and local attributes into the resilience assessment. This article aims to propose a novel methodology for assessing resilience, which can encourage stakeholder participation and communicate planners in shaping metropolitan land use policies. Using the Taichung metropolis, Taiwan as the study area, this article created a resilience metric called the Climatic Hazard Resilience Indicators for Localities (CHRIL) that is appropriate for use in a policy context. Then, this metric combined a fuzzy multicriteria decision analysis with a participatory geographic information system approach to measure and map resilience to climatic hazards. Through the participation of experts, local officers and community members, a multivariate analysis was applied to explain why low resilience areas occur in specific locations. Moreover, we performed a cluster analysis to group the areas into several types of resilience and revealed the relationship between the resilience factors and overall local development patterns. Results show that conflicts and tradeoffs may exist between some resilience factors, especially socioeconomic vulnerability and adaptive capacity. The findings provide stakeholders and policy-makers with a better governance structure to design and synthesize appropriate patchworks of planning measures for different types of resilience areas to reduce climatic hazard risks.     

土地整治项目绩效评价研究——以江西省为例

本文在分析土地整治项目绩效评价内涵及评价内容的基础上,用模糊层次分析法和多因素分值加和法,构建了江西省土地整治项目绩效评价指标体系,并对评价指标体系设定评分标准,更具有操作性。作者以江西省2010和2011年度土地整治示范建设147个子项目绩效评价为例,从项目绩效目标、项目资金情况、项目管理情况、项目产出情况和项目效益情况5个维度进行评价,并另附一票否决项作为附加指标,为土地整治项目绩效评价提供新的思路与方法,以期为完善土地整治项目效益评价体系,提高项目决策和管理工作水平提供科学依据。结果表明,江西省2010和2011年度土地整治示范建设项目绩效等级良好26个,占18%,其余为合格,无优差等级。     

基于土地发展权的增减挂钩中农民权益保障机制研究

在城乡建设用地增减挂钩中保障农民权益问题一直是学者关注的热点问题。本文基于土地发展权理论,从农民权益保障的角度,首先阐述了土地发展权在增减挂钩中的实践,分析了增减挂钩中农民权益损失路径,据此提出了保护农民权益的保障机制。以期为区域平衡发展的城乡建设用地增减挂钩实践提供理论依据。     

The application of the social tenure domain model (STDM) to family land in Trinidad and Tobago

Family land is a form of communal tenure found in some of the countries of the English-speaking Caribbean inclusive of Trinidad and Tobago. It has been problematic to administer, is sometimes the source of land conflict and litigation, it has been seen as the cause of many land-related problems such as land degradation and fragmentation, and has therefore been targeted for eradication by land title registration programmes. Informal occupation of many years standing on state and private land is also widespread in Trinidad and Tobago. Recording the existence of these extant extralegal but legitimate rights would go a long way to improving the land administration and the security of tenure on these lands.     

退耕还林工程灌木林培育与利用探讨

在干旱、半干旱的华北地区和西北地区,退耕还林工程中营造的灌木林占36.36%,并发挥了显著的生态效益和一定的经济、社会效益。总结了退耕还林工程发展灌木林取得的效益和经验做法,分析了灌木林培育与利用中存在的总体质量差、利用不充分、科技含量低、资金投入少等4个突出问题,提出了科学规划、分类经营,加强管理、提高质量,促进利用、发挥效益,强化科技、提升水平,加大扶持、推动发展等进一步加快灌木林培育与利用的对策建议。     

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.     

Are urban land tenure regulations in Namibia the solution or the problem?

Land tenure in Namibia is regulated by a variety of Acts, some of which date back to as far as 1937, and some of which are yet to be approved by Cabinet. This variety of Acts makes it difficult to evaluate the performance of land administration as a whole, and the appropriateness of coercive instruments with regards to urban land tenure in particular. In this article we evaluate how urban land tenure regularization practices are conducted in Namibia, and to compare new formal procedures, designed to address problems of efficiency and efficacy, to older existing procedures, supposedly not efficient or effective. This evaluation uses a theoretical framework of Pritchett and Woolcock [Pritchett, L., Woolcock, M., 2004. Solutions when the solution is the problem: arraying the disarray in development. World Development 32 (2), 191–212], which deals with public service delivery and transaction-intensive services. Applying this framework for a comparative analysis of 5 different land subdivision practices – each relying on a different land-related act – we conclude that the degree of regulation and regularization is perhaps not so much a solution for urban land tenure problems but more of a problem in itself.     

退耕还林工程利益相关者行为动态博弈分析

首先运用利益相关者理论,确定了政府、林管部门和农户为退耕还林工程的主要利益相关者,进而运用动态博弈理论剖析了退耕还林工程期满后主要利益相关者的行为机理,最后通过博弈结果的分析与讨论,得出结论和相关启示。