The governance of urban land use

The social, environmental and economic importance of land is immense. How land is used affects a wide range of outcomes – from the attractiveness of the built-environment to the length of commutes and from the environmental sustainability of cities to the value of property. Given the importance of land, it is not surprising that land use is highly regulated in most countries. However, it is far from clear that existing regulatory frameworks are optimal or that they are sufficiently flexible to allow smooth adaptation of land markets to changing circumstances while taking proper account of the externalities related to land.

Policy objectives that are closely linked to land use are frequently not met. Many countries, for example, suffer from high housing costs and urban sprawl. One of the reasons for the failure to achieve policy objectives is insufficient coordination of land use planning policies with other public policies. Beyond land use planning many other policy areas, such as tax policies, influence how land is used. Yet, their effects on land use are rarely taken into account when they are designed and implemented.

The planning profession has increasingly embraced multi-sectoral and integrated perspectives, but much more integration is required across policy areas in order to align instruments and objectives. This is of course not the purview of planners alone; it requires inter-disciplinary perspectives and new ways of working between administrative branches.

The side events will present global trends on land use in cities and discuss how to best achieve the various policy objectives related to land. It will assemble high-level representatives from several leading organisations in the field to discuss new approaches and good practices in the governance of land use from across the world.