Revisiting the Land Issue

This paper seeks to review the critical role of land in delivering sustainable development, focusing on the supply of affordable homes. It first presents a historical overview of debates on land reform, including nationalisation of development land and betterment, before reviewing the impact of land costs on housing delivery, using London as a case study. It then considers alternative policy approaches to ensuring the most effective use of land resources and development capacity, and sets out a programme embracing planning reform, public land acquisition, disposal and taxation.

The Triveneto transhumance: law, land, movement

North Italy's nomadic shepherds are a phenomenon unique in the world. Their nomadic nature is taken to the extreme since they move constantly rather than solely in the winter or the summer, as in the usual nomadism. Their home is on wheels and their territory is the tightly regulated yet sprawling Triveneto area. The Triveneto transhumance moves beyond private/public property divides, and indeed beyond lawful/unlawful distinctions, giving rise to what I have called an animal normativity. Relying on Valentina De Marchi's text 'Fame d'Erba' on the Triveneto transhumance, I show how territory becomes a question of animal hunger, and movement becomes an atmospheric, silent and imperceptible affect that crosses private property boundaries, state law limitations, reservation areas and road networks. This way of being, beyond the usual distinctions, offers an example of an alternative political and legal organisation that brings forth the continuum between the human, the natural and the legal/political.

Self-help, Saving and Suburbanisation - the Birkbeck Freehold Land and Building Societies, their Bank and the London Mechanics’ Institute 1851 – 1911.

The Birkbeck Freehold Land and Building Societies were launched in 1851 in the London Mechanics’ Institute, secured its survival, and eventually replaced its premises with the architectural ‘phantasmagoria’ of the Birkbeck Bank. Prior to its collapse in 1911 ‘the Birkbeck’ was a major element in the English property based financial system and contributed significantly to the suburban growth of London. The Institute, Societies and Bank shared a Utilitarian vision of social progress through self-help that was at times hotly contested by the radical champions of the social classes that they were initially formed to assist. Their parallel histories are attested today by ‘Birkbeck’ toponyms (including roads, pubs and a railway station) in the London landscape.

Marginal Activity Access Cost (MAAC): a new indicator for sustainable Land Use/Transport (LUT) planning

The paper presents the ‘Marginal Activity Access Cost’, an accessibility indicator providing estimation in monetary terms of the impacts on mobility and on the environment of locating a single new activity in a specific zone of the urban area. In the first part of this paper, the new indicator is presented and compared to other accessibility indicators proposed in literature. In the second part, the MAAC is validated through an application to the urban area of Rome. The paper concludes with brief remarks on using the proposed accessibility indicator as index of performance for sustainable spatial planning.

Gentrifying the Peri-urban: Land use Conflicts and institutional dynamics at the Frontier of an Indonesian Metropolis

This paper aims to specify the meaning of gentrification in rapidly peri-urbanising metropolitan regions in the context of Indonesia’s rapid transition to decentralisation and democracy. It discusses a case study of conflict over an environmental revitalisation project in a peri-urban area of Bandung City. The analysis focuses on the political processes, tactics and strategies supporting and opposing peri-urban gentrification and their consequences. The analysis illustrates how these political dynamics mediate the interaction between the movement of capital and the spatial reorganisation of social classes. It is argued that in the context of a peri-urbanising metropolis, gentrification needs to be narrated less in terms of class-based neighbourhood succession and more in terms of competing cross-class coalitions emerging at local and regional levels.

Accessibility Planning tools for sustainable and integrated Land Use/Transport (LUT) development: an application to Rome

The paper fits into the themes of sustainable accessibility planning in urban areas, that can be defined as the integration of transport and land use planning to achieve sustainable development. In particular the study proposes a tool to support the choices of activities location, which is based on a new aggregate (zone-specific) indicator: the ‘Marginal Activity Access Cost’, providing estimation in monetary terms of the impacts on mobility and on the environment of locating one new activity in a specific zone of the urban area. The proposed indicator is validated through an application to the urban area of Rome.