Governing Urban Land Use Decisions: A Property Rights Perspective

This paper proposes mechanism to govern urban land use decisions from a property rights perspective. The mechanisms are developed based on the premise that alignment of land use decisions with proper governance rule determines the competency and efficiency of land use decisions. Designing the mechanisms involves four basic building blocks: the dimensions of land-use decisions, the type of governance rules, the governing principles and the alignment method. Urban land-use decisions are classified based on the problems resulting from unregulated land use in cities. Governance rules have been selected from three types of legal rules concerned with the protection of property rights. Governing principles involving efficiency and equity are used to judge how well the governance rules control and coordinate land use decisions. The mechanism are designed by aligning urban land use decisions with the governance rules in a way that the governing principles are adequately met. The resulting urban land use governance mechanisms are discussed and a number of conclusions are offered.