Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
example (see the case study in Box 21.1) and is
typical of the kind of urban-fringe management
in many US cities. The emphasis remains on the
right of the individual to profit from the
development of his/her land. Open competition
for sites is likely to reduce land prices (and hence
the cost of development) and to balance the
demand for, and supply of, building land.
However, the resulting newly formed urban area
may lack non-profit activities such as public parks
and habitats; it may not economise on land loss
from farming; and it may not result in a compact
city, because of fragmented built-up areas. The
profits from land development will accrue to
individuals, and speculative gains and losses may
be frequent, since the pattern and timing of
development will be hard to predict in detail.
Without developing a full planning system, one
could attempt to achieve some of these public
objectives by, for example, a taxation system that
favours retaining land in farming (as in California,
Maryland and New York state), the public
purchase of development rights (as inVermont, but
an expensive option) and voluntary conservation
agreements (as inWisconsin).
If the benefits of the free market are felt to be
outweighed by its demerits, the idea of a British-
style planning system deserves attention. The key
features are that the right to develop land is
separated from its ownership, and development
rights are vested in the government. A similar result
comes from the Dutch system whereby land to be
developed must be sold by the original owner to a
public agency, which can then sell it to the
developer. Either way, the state controls the process
and can affect the rate and direction of land
transfers. The (British) Town and Country Planning
Act 1932 allowed those whose development
proposals had been refused by local government to
claim compensation for lost income; this effectively
nullified the planning process, as the rapid
suburbanisation of the 1930s testifies. Equally, one
could tax the unearned fortuitous gains made by
those selling land for development on the grounds
that society should share the financial rewards from
land-use changes made possible by society through
its planning mechanism. Such a tax may work if it
has all-party support in parliament; if not, the hope
of its repeal may intensify the short-term shortage
of development land and inflate land prices even
further. State controls make it easier to include
'uneconomic' land uses such as public-access
woodlands, examples of this being found around
London, Amsterdam and Paris. The trade-off is
between the greater certainties of the planned
development process and the need to regulate the
oligopoly of development land that it creates.
Clearly a planning system needs a plan, or rather it
needs two or more tiers of local, regional and
national plans, that sets out what society wants to
achieve and what the private land market will not
provide. In Britain (see the London case study in
Box 21.2), the goals included smaller continuous
built-up areas, more compact cities, less loss of
farmland and more land for public access.
Interestingly, the benefits of compactness (first
espoused by the vilification of 'urban sprawl' in the
1930s) have been rediscovered by the 'sustainable
city' ideal in the 1990s (Haughton and Hunter
1994).
The success of the plan depended on its
credibility. The more exceptions and deviations
from the plan, the less credible and effective it
would be. The approved London Green Belt was
in fact preserved with only minor exceptions. Yet
flexibility is also vital. To achieve this without
fatally undermining the plan, the inner limit of
the Green Belt was initially beyond the then built-
up area, so allowing for some further expansion
before reaching the Green Belt. Flexibility also
came from the use of 'proposed' and 'interim'
green belts. Until these were approved, a more
flexible view of development could be taken in
these areas.
Flexibility also arose from the meaning given
to 'development'. What are the permissible uses of
an urban fringe? Green Belt designation
prohibited 'urban' developments (e.g. housing and
industry) but did not of itself develop positive
features of the countryside. Control over
agriculture was limited (although slightly greater
than elsewhere in the UK), since farmers could
diversify into non-agricultural and recreational
activities. In smaller British cities, often without a
