Amid unprecedented challenges facing the world’s cities, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy has published an e-book that explores the centrality of land to the global urban future, and offers insights for cities grappling with changing planning, financing, and housing needs.
The e-book, Land and the City, is a compilation of the proceedings from the Lincoln Institute’s 2014 Land Policy Conference, edited by Lincoln Institute President George W. McCarthy, former President Gregory K. Ingram, and Program Manager Samuel A. Moody.
Drawing from a broad array of expertise and research, the book demonstrates how land policy shapes issues as diverse as the sustainability of local government revenues, the impacts of the foreclosure crisis, and urban resilience to climate change. The book contains four sections:
Urban Planning: The book addresses the contexts in which long-term urban planning will occur, from the transition from the baby boomer to millennial generation to the potentially cataclysmic impacts of climate change. It highlights the Atlas of Urban Expansion as a tool that can help planners navigate the challenge of putting land to the best and highest use while establishing a grid that allows for good mobility and infrastructure.
Taxation: This section describes the state of the property tax, the largest source of revenue raised directly by U.S. cities. It outlines the effects of limits imposed by tax revolts, and the impacts of the Great Recession on the property tax and municipal revenues more broadly.
Housing Finance: This section describes the impacts of the foreclosure crisis on households and neighborhoods, explores the uncertain future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – government-sponsored enterprises for home mortgage finance – and explains the challenges facing China’s housing system after the introduction of private housing markets in 1998.
Housing Policy: The final section describes policy approaches to deal with housing shortages and affordability challenges in Latin America, reviews the nature and impact of private communities on residential segregation, and compares the level of socioeconomic segregation in the educational systems of Latin America and the United States.
Chapters in this e-book include: Demographic Change and Future Urban Development, by Dowell Myers and Hyojung Lee, with commentary by Ann Forsyth; Monitoring the Share of Land in Streets: Public Works and the Quality of Global Urban Expansion, by Shlomo Angel with commentary by Michael B. Teitz; Climate Change and U.S. Cities: Vulnerability, Impacts, and Adaptation, by William Solecki with commentary by Matthias Ruth; The Past and Future of the Urban Property Tax, by Grant Driessen and Steven M. Sheffrin, with commentary by John Yinger; Local Government Finances During and After the Great Recession, by Adam H. Langley, with commentary by Michael A. Pagano; Foreclosures and Neighborhoods: The Shape and Impacts of the U.S. Mortgage Crisis, by Dan Immergluck, with commentary by James R. Follain; A Realistic Assessment of Housing Finance Reform, by Laurie S. Goodman, with commentary by William Apgar; An Evaluation of China’s Land Policy and Urban Housing Markets, by Joyce Y. Man, with commentary by David Geltner and Xin Zhang; Housing Policies and Urban Development: Lessons from the Latin American Experience, 1960–2010, by Eduardo Rojas, with commentary by Stephen Malpezzi; The Relationship Between the Rise of Private Communities and Increasing Socioeconomic Stratification, by Evan McKenzie with commentary by Gerald Korngold; and Socioeconomic Segregation Between Schools in the United States and Latin America, 1970 –2012, by Anna K. Chmielewski and Corey Savage, with commentary by Tara Watson.