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.     

Patterns of growth in Chinese cities: Implications of the land lease

A special feature of China’s housing market is land use rights in the form of land leasehold contracts granted by the government. We consider an equilibrium model in which a representative developer may choose to redevelop existing centrally located housing or to develop new housing at the periphery of the city. We show that as the city grows, the land leasehold system results in the city center being developed less intensely and more land being used on the outskirts of the city when compared to a fee simple environment. Thus, cities in China are likely to be relatively more spread out, with city centers relatively older than would be the case with “fee simple” ownership. Our model suggests that excess residential land use is about 6 percent. In addition, compared with the ownership case, housing supply will grow more quickly in the near future, but more slowly later on during the transition of the Chinese economy. Parallel to the supply growth pattern, equilibrium price grows relative slowly in the near future, but more quickly later on. While we focus on residential uses, we believe our model can be applied to other land uses.     

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.     

住房自有率与城市蔓延：理论与实证

通过构建一个包含住房租赁市场的封闭、单中心城市一般均衡模型，模型化了住房自有率与城市蔓延之间的关系，理论模型结论显示：首先，与自有住房者相比，租房者倾向于居住在离市中心较近的地方；其次，住房自有率的提高会使城市空间面积扩大，加剧城市蔓延。进一步，利用地级市数据分别对理论命题结论进行了检验，在比较充分地控制内生性问题后，实证结果证实了高住房自有率会加剧城市蔓延。因此，长期以来我国不断升高的住房自有率也是加剧我国城市蔓延的重要原因。     

Whose village? Stakeholder interests in the urban renewal of Hubei old village in Shenzhen

This article examines the urban regeneration process of Hubei old village in Shenzen, and focuses on interest sharing among stakeholders. Urban regeneration processes are driven by the decreasing availability of construction land in Shenzhen’s city centre due to rapid urbanization and an unplanned, overcrowded urban core. The solution accepted by most stakeholders, i.e., local government, private developers, and urban villagers, is to generate land revenue through the demolition of urban villages like Hubei old village, thus clearing way for Shenzen’s urban development and transformation. However, tenants and small business operators do not benefit from the rising land and property value, and thus do not share the interests of other stakeholders. A further complication to Shenzen’s urban regeneration process is added by those who do not live in Hubei old village but have vocally fought to preserve its architectural heritage. By examining the urban regeneration process of Hubei old village in Shenzhen, this article provides a case study of the complex dynamics of the Hubei urban regeneration program and participatory planning process, taking as a starting point a question posed by an urban villager during an interview: “whose village?”, i.e., who has the right to make decisions on behalf of the urban village?     

The organisation of urban agriculture in Cape Town,South Africa: A social capital perspective

This article explores urban agriculture in Cape Town and its organisational forms. Based on a literature review of peer-reviewed articles and grey literature, it examines the state of linkages among urban farmers and various supporting organisations of urban agriculture. Moreover, it examines the coordination of activities among key supporting organisations. By analysing the roles of state and non-state actors and linkages, the article discusses implications for the development of urban agriculture. This article suggests that a lack of effective coordination of initiatives among supporting actors presents a significant pitfall in the development of urban agriculture. Furthermore, the failure of farmers to self-organise is identified as equally detrimental. Therefore, it calls for improved synergies between state and non-state actors involved to ensure that the gains of urban agriculture are enhanced.     

Revealing travel patterns and city structure with taxi trip data

Delineating travel patterns and city structure has long been a core research topic in transport geography. Different from the physical structure, the city structure beneath the complex travel-flow system shows the inherent connection patterns within the city. On the basis of taxi-trip data from Shanghai, we built spatially embedded networks to model intra-city spatial interactions and to introduce network science methods into the analysis. The community detection method is applied to reveal sub-regional structures, and several network measures are used to examine the properties of sub-regions. Considering the differences between long- and short-distance trips, we reveal a two-level hierarchical polycentric city structure in Shanghai. Further explorations of sub-network structures demonstrate that urban sub-regions have broader internal spatial interactions, while suburban centers are more influential on local traffic. By incorporating the land use of centers from a travel-pattern perspective, we investigate sub-region formation and the interaction patterns of center–local places. This study provides insights into using emerging data sources to reveal travel patterns and city structures, which could potentially aid in developing and applying urban transportation policies. The sub-regional structures revealed in this study are more easily interpreted for transportation-related issues than for other structures, such as administrative divisions.     

Who could benefit from a bus rapid transit system in cities from developing countries? A case study from Kampala,Uganda

The present rapid urban growth of cities from developing countries causes negative externalities such as lagging infrastructure development. In combination with rapidly rising motorized vehicle use this leads to severe traffic congestion affecting the mobility of the urban residents. Therefore many urban governments are planning to improve their transport and mobility situations with mass rapid transit systems of which a bus rapid transit (BRT) is a rather easy system to implement at reasonable costs. However, due to high urban inequalities the effects of urban traffic and potential improvements of the urban transport system for the diverse group of urban residents can differ significantly. In our case study Kampala (Uganda) four main groups were identified through cluster analysis of socio-economic and residential data gathered through interviews: extreme poor, poor, middle income and rich. Each group experiences a different mobility with the extreme poor being the most vulnerable group. The planned BRT system aims to decrease the average travel time but risks to exclude the lowest income class since not enough attention is paid to the affordability of the system to all residents. Therefore we argue for a policy that works from bottom up and pays attention to the internal diversity of the population.     

Between Neoliberal Governance and the Right to the City: Participatory politics in Berlin and Tel Aviv

Based on a comparison of Berlin and Tel Aviv, this article investigates the ways in which ensembles of participatory instruments mediate between neoliberal urban regimes and political agency shaping differentially the meaning of participation and the types of claims that can be advanced. The article gives an overview of the recent history of both cities through the lens of participatory politics. Two in‐depth case studies further examine the relationship between participatory politics and claim making in each setting: the recent conflict over a social center in the district of Friedrichshain‐Kreuzberg in Berlin and the Levinsky tent city of 2011 in Tel Aviv. In the concluding section, the article suggests that, rather than assuming that participatory tools either co‐opt movements or can be appropriated by them, we need to rethink the relationship between participatory tools, rights and recognition, and ask how participatory structures and political agency constitute each other in interwoven dynamics.     

A cellular automata-based land-use model as an integrated spatial decision support system for urban planning in developing cities: The case of the Bogotá region

Bogotá and the 17 neighboring municipalities make up one of the biggest metropolitan areas in Latin America. However, despite strong functional interactions within the area, there is no official government body at this level in charge of coordinating authorities and providing solutions to the wide variety of issues arising in the regional urban land system. Aiming at providing an insight on future land-use developments linked to new transport infrastructures and at offering a tool to support territorial decision-making, this paper presents a cellular automata-based (CA) model based in Metronamica® software, that allows testing different scenarios based on potential land-use policies, environmental suitability and transport alternatives.There has not been, so far, an urban planning tool that accounts for the complexities of this region. CA-based land-use simulations constitute a useful approach to understanding the impacts of urban planning policies and regulations. This tool can help to improve inter-territorial and inter-institutional coordination, which through planning and management policies seek a spatially integrated development, with a long-term perspective.The CA-based model proposed was calibrated to reproduce land-use changes between 2007 and 2016 using different methods and indicators. The model was used to simulate and analyze eight scenarios with different policy directions of transport infrastructure in the future of the region. The results of the simulations reflect the dynamics of territorial occupation. The calibration indices in the experiment indicate a high degree of suitability for the CA Bogotá model, proving its effectiveness and potential as a useful tool for decision-making. The results show that occupation scenarios with restricted developable zones within the city, tend to have the greater dispersion rate in the study area, compared to scenarios where land development plans are promoted in Bogotá, which representing a more compact development.