By Geoffrey Payne, Geoffrey Payne and Associates

 

To say we are living in interesting times is a gross understatement. Increasing populations, globalisation and climate change have increased demand for land, while market forces have raised prices to levels unaffordable to many. Urbanisation has been the engine of economic development, though conventional methods of managing urban growth have failed to meet the needs of predominantly low-income migrants and the indigenous urban populations. The challenges are greatest in the peri-urban areas.

 

Security of tenure

Conflicts over land are the most common form of litigation in many countries, impeding social and economic development. Dual or multiple legal land tenure systems present both policymakers and residents with major challenges. Many pragmatic responses have evolved which command social legitimacy, even if they lack full legal authority.

 

Claims that property ownership can help lift people out of poverty have been grossly exaggerated and have not only raised land prices to levels that many cannot hope to afford, but have rendered many vulnerable to market-driven displacement. Even more seriously, unless all subsequent land transfers are formally registered, the certainty provided by titles ceases to exist. The lesson is clear; for the young, the poor and the elderly, ownership can be a burden rather than a benefit, so governments need to promote a range of tenure options to meet diverse needs.

 

Regulatory barriers

Planning standards, regulations and administrative procedures for registering, developing and transferring land exert considerable influence over the equity and efficiency of land markets. These norms are formulated by professionals but have proved inappropriate to needs in many countries. For example, official minimum plots sizes are too often based on aspirations not realities and impose costs that many cannot afford, forcing them into various forms of unauthorised development and making it impossible for many existing residents to become legal.

 

The number of administrative steps, costs and time required to register and develop land deters many people from conforming to official norms and is a widespread source of corruption. Innovative approaches, such as ‘One-Stop-Shops’, have improved land management and governance, but need to be more widely adopted.

 

Land use planning

Mixed land use stimulates social interaction and economic development and is a key feature of successful cities. However, many master plans seek to inhibit this in favour of superficial forms of order. Planning should also maximise the proportion of land in private, revenue-generating use. Satellite cities have increased transport costs and encroached on large areas of productive rural land, suggesting that greater focus should be given to developing more compact poly-centric cities.

 

Innovative approaches to balance the interests of public and private sectors have generated many examples of innovative partnership. However, private interests have increased with land commercialization, weakening public influence.

 

The rise of neoliberalism

Any discussion of land management needs to be based on an assessment of the political and economic context that determines outcomes. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the limitations it exposed of socialist state planning, the influence of capitalist forms of market-driven development or neoliberalism accelerated globally. Neoliberalism was conceived as a balance between state planning and classical liberalism. However, it became a more regressive form of economic theory and exerted a powerful influence over the policies of Reagan and Thatcher, not to mention the World Bank and IMF. Despite the global recession of 2008, land and property remain a key asset class of choice for those with funds to invest and land has now become a commodity like any other, dramatically reducing its social and cultural value.



The commodification of land promoted by neoliberalism has increased inequality in countries at all levels of economic development and led to social, economic and political instability.



The political economy of land

Given the extent to which competition for land has intensified, it is inevitable that it now dominates public discourse and media attention globally. Interests have become so intense that many of those campaigning on land rights have even been killed. Our role as professionals and the responsibilities we have to society have never been greater.



Put simply, the challenge is to make markets work for society, not the other way round. Fortunately, land and housing markets are an excellent means for achieving this wider goal since government exert considerable direct and indirect influence over land prices and are therefore justified in claiming a reasonable proportion of the surplus generated for allocation in the public interest. There are many good examples of innovative, practical means of achieving this. However, vested interests inhibit their adoption and implementation at the speed and scale needed.



Progress requires that professionals use all means, including public media, to address vested interests to realise change or identify and support alternatives. The first is clearly the best option and requires more awareness of the arguments and evidence that will carry weight. The second is very much a last resort, especially where opposition can is potentially dangerous.



Even when the scope for change is limited, it is essential that professionals retain their intellectual independence and identify any options available at a given time and place. The international community can be a great source of support.



Apart from climate change, the greatest challenge of our day is inequality. A new system of regulating land markets is needed that harnesses the strengths of capitalism in putting resources to efficient use in generating growth with the regulatory responsibilities of the state to protect the public interest. The time has never been better for implementing such approaches and Habitat III provides an ideal forum for promoting them.

This blog post is based on Geoffrey Payne's keynote speech at the 2016 LANDac Annual International Land Conference ‘Land governance in the context of urbanisation and climate change: Linking the rural and the urban’.