Jack Huddleston is professor of urban and regional planning and is affiliated with the Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Oklahoma State University and worked as chief economic development planner and chief of local fiscal policy analysis for the State of Wisconsin prior to joining the university. He teaches planning methods and financial planning in the graduate planning program at Madison and is a faculty member in the land resources, water resources management, and energy analysis and policy programs within the Gaylord Nelson Institute. His recent research has focused on applied local government finance issues in the U.S. and the former Soviet Union; energy subsidy schemes in the Dominican Republic and Indonesia; and watershed management and sustainable development in western Mexico.

Land Lines: What do planners need to know about local budgeting, and why?

Jack Huddleston: Planners tend to think narrowly within the boundaries of the functional or physical areas for which they plan. For example, planners charged with preparing and implementing land use plans often are mainly concerned with forecasting land use needs, reconciling land use conflicts, and developing and administering implementation tools such as zoning ordinances. They are not overly concerned with such facts as over the last decade the city’s tax base has been growing at only one percent per year, city spending has been growing by three percent per year, and the city’s bond rating has slipped from Aa to B. The thinking is, “planners plan; others budget.”

Arguably, planners have more impact on the fiscal health of cities and regions than any other civil servant or elected official. They set the path for tax base growth and local government spending patterns far into the future. The things planners do on a daily basis—land use planning, transportation planning, environmental planning, social services planning and so forth—directly affect local government budgets.

When planners approve development on the urban fringe, for example, they have just affected economic conditions throughout the region. Decisions to approve commercial rather than industrial development have similar impacts. The final development project will determine the specific impact on local government revenues and spending, but the decisions made by planners set the direction and relative dimensions of the tax base and local government spending impacts that will occur later. Thus, it is important that planners understand what the local government budget represents, how it is composed, and how it changes over time if they are to understand how their activities affect local budgets.

LL: What kinds of direct impacts can planners have on the community budgeting process?

JH: The local budget serves both existing development, such as current residents, businesses, churches, commuters and visitors, and new development. Public revenues from property, sales and income taxes and user charges from existing activities are relatively stable over time, after adjusting for the impacts of inflation. Similar stability exists for local government spending to support existing activities.

Planners have their greatest impact on local government budgets when they adopt or approve plans for new development. It is here that the dimensions of new tax base growth are determined. It is also here that local government spending patterns are established. Residential development will require new streets and schools; commercial development will require streets, storm water management, and transportation system improvements; and industrial development will require special kinds of fire protection, major shipping services, and so forth. All types of development will involve the exhaustion of excess capacity in existing public infrastructure and require investment in new infrastructure.

LL: How do you get planning board members and planning practitioners to become concerned about and interested in these issues?

JH: There is actually very little need to get planning board members more interested in the fiscal side of planning than they already are. They feel the political pressure to keep taxes low on almost every decision they make. Their concern is largely how to measure the fiscal impacts of their decisions, in terms of both revenues and spending. In addition, they want to know how to evaluate the fiscal impact of their decisions against other goals and constraints, such as economic growth, social justice and fairness, environmental sensitivity, and so forth.

The knowledge/motivation gap for practicing planners is more significant and probably started during their graduate studies and training. Courses dealing with the fiscal side of planning, if available, are often the course taken after all the “useful and fun” courses are completed. After all, planning job listings often announce positions for “land use planners” or “transportation planners,” but few advertise for “financial planners.”

The key to getting practicing planners more interested in the fiscal side of planning is to establish the view that good planning without good finance is largely nonsustainable planning. At the University of Wisconsin-Madison we have included financial planning in the basic toolbox of skills and knowledge we think all planners should command. These skills, which we call intrinsic planning skills, include other tools such as map making, public participation, public speaking and effective communications.

LL: What current trends in local budgeting are relevant to planning goals?

JH: Most of the trends in local budgeting that directly affect attainment of planning goals come from external sources. For example, federal and state governments increasingly are getting out of urban development and redevelopment efforts. The need for such efforts has not diminished and, if anything, has increased, but higher levels of government have decided that such efforts are primarily of local interest. At the same time local governments are being required to fund new programs for efforts such as homeland security and environmental remediation. In general, pressures have been building for ever-increasing spending on the part of local governments.

On the revenue side of the local budget, state statutes limit the amount of revenues that local governments can raise. State governments have preferred reserving the high-yield income tax to fund state government, leaving the property tax as the primary source of funds for local governments. This reliance on the property tax has led to the property tax “revolts” and “restraint movements” that we read about across the country. In general, the sentiment to reduce property tax burdens has led local governments to find alternatives to the property tax, placing more importance on user charges and other locally based financial tools such as tax increment financing.

LL: How can planners address public resistance to property tax increases?

JH: Planners will need to become part planner and part public educator. Citizens value the public goods and services provided by local governments, but they also perceive that the costs of government are getting too high. To some extent there is a disconnect between the value of public goods and services received by local residents and businesses and the need to fund these services. Most of us appreciate the fact that citizenship has a price, but we are more willing to pay when we understand the uses to which public resources are being put and the benefits that will be generated.

This is where the planner as educator comes in. As planners, we often think of our activities as acres of land, dwelling units per acre, traffic flow per hour, or biological oxygen demand of the river [BOD is a measure of water pollution]. These same concepts can be translated into fiscal terms. We need to be able to talk about how various planning activities will affect the local budget, both in the short run and in the long term.

Comprehensive plans, for example, will affect the property tax base of a community for years into the future. Development patterns will affect how cities and regions spend their limited resources over time. Public infrastructure projects not only affect how and when development will take place, but they also place financial commitments on current and future residents. Sustainable development requires that planners be able to anticipate physical, social and financial needs and constraints, and that they are able to communicate these factors convincingly to interested citizens and decision makers.

LL: How is your work with the Lincoln Institute helping to broaden awareness about fiscal planning?

JH: I am working with Roz Greenstein, co-chair of the Institute’s Department of Planning and Development, on an effort to “train the trainers” in the fiscal dimensions of planning. The concept is to assemble leading scholars and practitioners in the fields of public finance and planning in order to develop educational materials that can be used initially in graduate planning programs and subsequently in professional continuing education programs. The materials will cover the basics of municipal budgeting and finance for planners and will stress both how the activities of planners affect local budgets and how local fiscal conditions affect the activities of planners.

The first year of this effort is producing educational materials on the legal and institutional context for local budgets, the intersection between planning and local budgets, the content and process for developing local government operating and capital budgets, property tax administration and policy, fiscal impact analysis and fiscal impacts of development. This material will be presented and discussed in a workshop at the Lincoln Institute in July 2005. Invited participants include senior and junior faculty and professionals from across the U.S. and Canada. This group will not only test the first phase of these materials, but also will develop the agenda for topics to be covered in future sets of materials.

The goal of the overall effort is to increase planners’ understanding of the fiscal dimensions of planning. In concept, participants in the July workshop will be better able to incorporate fiscal thinking into courses at their respective institutions. Educational materials will also be made available to the broader academic community for the same purposes. The Institute’s investment in this important initiative has the potential to enhance planning education in the near term, but more importantly to change the way planning practitioners think about the work they do on an everyday basis.

Related Publication

Venkatesh, Harini. 2004. Local public finance: A glossary. Working paper. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. http://www.lincolninst.edu/pubs/Pub-Detail.asp?id=982

Peter Pollock, FAICP, is the Ronald Smith Fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Since July 2006 he has been working with the Department of Planning and Urban Form to manage the Institute’s joint venture projects with the Sonoran Institute and the Public Policy Research Institute of the Universtiy of Montana.

Una versión más actualizada de este artículo está disponible como parte del capítulo 7 del CD-ROM Perspectivas urbanas: Temas críticos en políticas de suelo de América Latina.

La rápida e intensa urbanización que se produjo en América Latina en los últimos 50 años se contrasta frecuentemente en la literatura con un sistema de planeamiento urbanístico inadecuado para explicar los múltiples problemas sociales resultantes: alto precio del suelo y especulación en propiedades, informalidad rampante, segregación socioespacial extrema, infraestructura y servicios urbanos inadecuados, degradación ambiental, etc. Sin embargo, la literatura omite, en gran medida, el rol de los sistemas legales nacionales, que han contribuido a esta situación a la vez que también han reaccionado en su contra. El rol central cumplido por el régimen legal no se puede subestimar.

Los sistemas legales también han contribuido al desarrollo informal por dos mecanismos principales: disposiciones legales de exclusión del suelo, derechos de propiedad y normas de registro; y los sistemas de planeamiento deficientes adoptados en muchas grandes ciudades. Tanto la falta de regulación del suelo como la aprobación de leyes de planeamiento elitistas que se niegan a reflejar las realidades socioeconómicas, que limitan el acceso al suelo y viviendas a los pobres, han jugado un rol perverso, agravando, y a veces hasta determinando, la segregación socioespacial. Las disputas institucionales entre gobiernos locales y nacionales sobre el poder para regular el desarrollo urbano también han producido problemas legales adicionales.

La jurisprudencia progresiva, las demandas de varios movimientos sociales y un creciente debate legislativo desatado por los intereses divergentes de las diversas partes interesadas han dado lugar a perspectivas legales en conflicto. Como consecuencia, los debates legales en América Latina oscilan entre las interpretaciones anacrónicas de las cláusulas legales existentes y un llamado a la construcción de un sistema legal más legitimado y socialmente receptivo. Este artículo intenta exponer estas tensiones y ofrecer algunas nuevas direcciones de debate.

La búsqueda de un paradigma legal coherente

En muchas ciudades, los sistemas legales que regulan el desarrollo urbano son significativamente obsoletos e incoherentes, generando un incumplimiento generalizado y una creciente desconexión entre la ciudad legal y la ciudad real. Importantes avances en la gestión urbana, promovidos por administraciones locales progresivas, han sido socavados frecuentemente por los obstáculos creados por regímenes legal-urbanísticos nacionales caducos. En el contexto más amplio de los procesos volátiles de democratización en la región, se ha puesto un énfasis más grande en la posibilidad de que un ordenamiento legal-urbanístico renovado podría avanzar la reforma urbana. Muchos académicos, políticos, funcionarios públicos y organizaciones comunitarias comprenden que la promoción de mercados de suelo eficientes, inclusión socioespacial y sustentabilidad ambiental sólo será posible por medio de la adopción de nuevo paradigmas legales claramente definidos y coherentes.

Los principios legales en general, y en particular los que regulan los derechos de desarrollo del suelo y las relaciones inmobiliarias, se determinan políticamente y se asimilan culturalmente. Los sistemas legales tienden a ser complejos, ya que incluyen disposiciones distintas, contradictorias y hasta en conflicto, adoptadas en el transcurso del tiempo como consecuencia de procesos sociopolíticos en evolución. El mantenimiento de un sistema legal que no exprese de manera fundamental las realidades de los procesos socioeconómicos y político-institucionales que se propone regular genera distorsiones de todo tipo.

La racionalización de un sistema legal es una tarea exigente pero crucial, que requiere la aprobación de nuevas leyes y también un esfuerzo continuo para (re)interpretar los principios y cláusulas en vigencia. No obstante, dicha interpretación puede variar significativamente según el paradigma legal adoptado por el intérprete. Distintos paradigmas pueden coexistir en la misma cultura legal, causando ambigüedades legales y conflictos judiciales potenciales, sobre todo en países donde la división tradicional entre el derecho público y el derecho privado todavía no está claramente delineada.

En América Latina existen tres paradigmas legales en competencia: el derecho civil, el derecho administrativo y el derecho urbanístico. Históricamente, el paradigma civilista hegemónico, que se basa en lecturas altamente parciales de los códigos civiles y expresa los valores del legalismo liberal clásico, ha sido reformado gradualmente por el paradigma más intervencionista provisto por el derecho administrativo. Un movimiento incipiente reciente ha avanzado un paso más, reclamando que sólo el marco más progresivo del derecho urbanístico podría proporcionar un paradigma legal comprensivo para la era contemporánea.

Los códigos civiles y el laissez faire en el desarrollo urbano

La interpretación dominante de los códigos civiles, provista por la doctrina y la jurisprudencia, y arraigada en la imaginación popular a lo largo del siglo veinte, sigue tendiendo a realzar los derechos de los propietarios en detrimento de sus responsabilidades, y no considera otros intereses sociales, ambientales y culturales que derivan de la tenencia de la propiedad. Esta interpretación brinda poca consideración a los valores de uso, ya que la tenencia del suelo y la propiedad se concibe mayormente como una mercancía cuyo valor económico queda determinado principalmente por los intereses del dueño. Los principios tradicionales del derecho privado, como la condena de toda forma de abuso de poder y el requisito de justa causa para justificar el enriquecimiento legítimo, han sido poco menos que ignorados en esta definición poco equilibrada de los derechos de propiedad.

Desde esta perspectiva, el accionar del Estado en la gestión del suelo y políticas urbanísticas está seriamente restringido, y las iniciativas significativas de planeamiento urbano han generado frecuentes conflictos judiciales. Los grandes proyectos públicos generalmente requieren expropiaciones onerosas de suelo, y el pago de compensación se calcula sobre los valores plenos de mercado. Las obligaciones de los emprendedores son pocas y la carga de la construcción de infraestructura y provisión de servicios recae mayormente sobre el Estado. Si bien los derechos de desarrollo y construcción se suponen expresiones intrínsecas de los derechos individuales de propiedad del suelo, no hay un ámbito establecido para la noción de que la administración pública debería recuperar el valor incremental del suelo generado por las obras y servicios públicos. Esta tradición legal ha sido agravada más aún por la burocratización de las transacciones contractuales y comerciales, y también por las exigencias excesivas del registro de propiedades y el acceso al crédito.

Dentro de esta tradición legal individualista, el derecho a usar y disponer de la propiedad se malinterpreta frecuentemente como el derecho a no usar o disponer de la propiedad. Casi no hay obligaciones legales ni órdenes compulsivas más sustanciales. La preponderancia de este paradigma en Brasil, por ejemplo, ha significado que mientras el déficit de viviendas se ha estimado en 7,9 millones de unidades y el pueblo vive en 12 millones de construcciones precarias, otras 5,5 millones de unidades están vacías o subutilizadas. En algunas ciudades se estima que del 20 al 25 por ciento del suelo con acceso a servicios se encuentra vacante.

También es típico de este paradigma del derecho civil el absolutismo de la libertad individual en detrimento de las formas colectivas o restrictivas de los derechos de propiedad, como los derechos de arrendamiento o comunales, de área y posesión. Muchos códigos civiles contienen estos derechos, pero en general se los ignora o subestima. Si bien los derechos de adquisición por prescripción exigen períodos prolongados de ocupación del suelo, hay un arsenal de instrumentos legales disponibles para desalojar a sus ocupantes e inquilinos.

Como resultado de este enfoque laissez faire en el desarrollo del suelo, el ordenamiento urbanístico-legal en las ciudades de América Latina no se puede considerar como plenamente democrático. El proceso de desarrollo informal refleja la realidad de que cada vez más personas han tenido que violar la ley para obtener acceso al suelo y la vivienda urbana.

Derecho administrativo e intervención del Estado

El planeamiento urbano en algunas grandes ciudades ha sido respaldado por los principios legales del derecho administrativo. Este paradigma de derecho público ha intentado reformar la tradición del derecho privado, pero ha limitado el alcance de la noción de la “función social de la propiedad”. Este concepto ha existido en la mayoría de las constituciones nacionales como principio nominal desde la década de 1930. Este paradigma más intervencionista reconoce el “poder de policía” del Estado para imponer restricciones y limitaciones externas sobre los derechos de propiedad individual en el nombre del interés público, respaldando así formas tradicionales de planeamiento regulador.

Éstos han sido intentos tímidos, sin embargo, porque la imposición de obligaciones legales, órdenes compulsivas y requisitos de reservación del suelo siguen encontrando fuerte resistencia popular y judicial. En la mayoría de los países, los tribunales han dictaminado que el Estado puede imponer ciertas limitaciones sobre los derechos de propiedad, pero la imposición de obligaciones sobre los terratenientes y emprendedores ha sido más difícil. Esto es particularmente cierto con las leyes locales que han intentando imponer la obligación de asignar suelos o unidades para vivienda social como condición previa para la aprobación de un proyecto inmobiliario, pero han sido declaradas inconstitucionales.

Muchas ciudades siguen aprobando nuevas subdivisiones del suelo, si bien ya existe un inventario considerable de lotes vacantes. El problema es que no cuentan con instrumentos legales para imponer un uso acorde con la función social. Si bien los emprendedores han sido obligados a asumir una creciente responsabilidad por la construcción de infraestructura, algunos desarrollos significativos, incluyendo comunidades cerradas de altos ingresos, han sido aprobados sin condiciones de reserva del suelo o unidades de viviendas para trabajadores domésticos o de servicio. Ello ha causado la aparición de nuevos proyectos inmobiliarios informales y una mayor densidad de edificación en asentamientos existentes para dar cabida al sector de bajos ingresos.

En algunas ciudades que han intentado imponer códigos de zonificación, planes maestros y otras leyes urbanas complejas, ha emergido una tradición de planeamiento burocrático que refleja una incomprensión de cómo las regulaciones urbanas y ambientales afectan la formación y el movimiento de los precios del suelo. Los urbanistas siguen teniendo dificultades para contradecir la noción establecida de que los dueños del suelo y la propiedad tienen el derecho automático a las ganancias resultantes del planeamiento y desarrollo urbano. En la mayoría de los casos, las administraciones públicas no han recuperado el generoso incremento del valor del suelo producido por las obras y los servicios públicos, como también por los cambios en la legislación urbana que gobierna los derechos de uso y desarrollo de los suelos.

La mayoría de los sistemas de planeamiento no han reconocido la capacidad limitada del Estado para garantizar el cumplimiento de la legislación urbana. Como consecuencia, no se han puesto en práctica dichos planes apropiadamente y muchas violaciones del orden legal han sido ignoradas. En algunas ciudades se tarda años en obtener la licencia para ciertos procesos de desarrollo importantes, como la subdivisión del suelo, lo cual afecta también el proceso de desarrollo informal.

Otro problema recurrente es el desarrollo paralelo y a veces antagonista de regímenes legales urbanísticos y ambientales separados. Las cláusulas ambientales se usan frecuentemente para oponerse a las políticas de viviendas con orientación social. En términos sociopolíticos, la mayoría de las leyes de planeamiento no cuentan con una participación popular sustancial, ya sea en su formulación o ejecución.

Al no cambiar la dinámica de los mercados de suelo, las políticas de planeamiento supuestamente contemporáneas frecuentemente terminan reforzando los procesos tradicionales de especulación del suelo y la propiedad, y la segregación socioespacial. A menudo El planeamiento urbano ha sido ineficiente para promover un desarrollo equilibrado del suelo, y en cambio ha beneficiado a los emprendedores del suelo, inversores en propiedad y especuladores. Estas ganancias se han potenciado por el crecimiento significativo de precios causado por las regulaciones que establecen los límites del desarrollo urbano. Las áreas que han quedado para los sectores urbanos pobres, como los suelos públicos y las áreas ecológicamente sensibles, no son reguladas por el mercado.

Esta tensión entre la interpretación de los códigos civiles y las leyes de planeamiento burocrático ha promovido en la práctica el desarrollo informal y la segregación socioespacial: la ley ha sido uno de los factores determinantes de la ilegalidad urbana. En los casos en que se hicieron intentos significativos para promover la inclusión socioespacial y la sustentación ambiental, el régimen urbanístico-legal sigue sin respaldar por completo la práctica preponderante de gestión urbana.

Por ejemplo, unos aspectos de las sociedades público-privadas y la participación de ONGs en la provisión de servicios públicos han sido cuestionados debido a la confusión entre los valores privados y públicos. Los derechos sociales reconocidos nominalmente, como el derecho a la vivienda, no se han hecho cumplir plenamente debido a la carencia de procesos, mecanismos e instrumentos necesarios.

Derecho urbanístico y principios de la reforma legal

A partir de la década de 1980, un importante movimiento de reforma legal comenzó a cuestionar este ordenamiento legal exclusionista, y un nuevo paradigma ha emergido en algunos países. Los proponentes del derecho urbanístico han argumentado que es posible, y de hecho necesario, analizar los códigos civiles para encontrar principios legales que respalden una intervención decidida por parte del Estado en la regulación y el control social de los procesos relacionados con el suelo y la propiedad. La reinterpretación de principios legales tradicionales, como también el énfasis en principios ignorados previamente (como la noción de que ningún enriquecimiento es legítimo sin una justa causa) pueden coadyuvar a un progreso significativo en la formulación de la política urbanística de suelos.

Este esfuerzo exige conocimientos legales complejos, ya que potencialmente involucra debates legales y disputas judiciales cuyos resultados no son para nada ciertos. Desde el punto de vista de las comunidades urbanas y las administraciones públicas comprometidas a promover políticas de inclusión, este enfoque trata de organizar el marco regulador general, en parte por medio de la promulgación de nuevas leyes que expresen más claramente los principios del derecho urbanístico.

Si bien este proceso está más avanzado en Brasil (principalmente a través de la Constitución Federal de 1988 y la ley municipal de 2001) y Colombia (principalmente a través de la Constitución de 1991 y la Ley 388/1997), se ha incorporado una serie de principios comunes en los ordenamientos legales de otros países de América Latina (Fernandes 2007a; 2007b; Maldonado Copello 2003; 2007).

El principio estructural más importante es la noción de la función social de la propiedad, incluyendo la propiedad pública y el registro de la propiedad. Las ciudades son el producto de un proceso colectivo, y la promoción de un régimen territorial equilibrado es al mismo tiempo un derecho colectivo y una obligación del Estado. El ordenamiento urbanístico no se puede determinar exclusivamente por los derechos individuales y los intereses de los propietarios del suelo, ni tampoco por los derechos del estado únicamente. Se debería promover la intervención pública imponiendo limitaciones administrativas sobre los derechos de propiedad, responsabilidades legales y requisitos de desarrollo.

Otros principios legales similares se pueden usar para establecer una distribución justa de los costos y oportunidades del desarrollo urbano entre dueños, emprendedores, el Estado y la sociedad; afirmar el rol central del Estado para establecer un ordenamiento territorial adecuado por medio de un sistema de planeamiento y gestión; establecer una clara separación entre los derechos de propiedad y de desarrollo/construcción; establecer criterios distintos para calcular la compensación de expropiaciones y otros contextos; reducir el plazo requerido para legalizar la posesión de hecho con el fin de materializar viviendas sociales; y reconocer más firmemente los derechos de los ocupantes e inquilinos.

El uso y desarrollo del suelo es guiado por una amplia gama de derechos colectivos, como el derecho al planeamiento urbano, una vivienda adecuada y un medio ambiente equilibrado; el derecho de la comunidad y la obligación del Estado de recuperar el incremento en el valor del suelo generado por la acción del Estado y la legislación urbanística; y el derecho a la regularización de asentamientos informales consolidados.

Algunas ciudades colombianas han amasado recursos financieros significativos por medio de mecanismos de recuperación de plusvalías del suelo, haciendo posible (si bien no siembre practicable) formular un proceso más sustentable de acceso legal al suelo con acceso a servicios por parte de los sectores urbanos pobres. En Brasil, algunas municipalidades también han podido generar recursos financieros significativos como resultado de sus “operaciones urbanísticas”, donde se negocian derechos de desarrollo y construcción dentro del marco de un plan maestro. También se han promovido en varios países programas de regularización para modernizar y legalizar asentamientos consolidados.

No obstante, la disputa entre estos paradigmas legales continúa, y todos estos nuevos principios y derechos siguen siendo objeto de un debate feroz. La Corte Constitucional de Colombia ha adoptado en forma consistente una interpretación progresiva, respaldando la noción de la función social de la propiedad y el derecho social a la vivienda. Un estudio reciente de decisiones judiciales dictadas por las cortes superiores de varios estados brasileños demuestra que el nuevo paradigma legal ha sido asimilado en aproximadamente el 50 por ciento de sus decisiones, mientras que las restantes siguen siendo orientadas por el paradigma conservador del Código Civil (Mattos 2006).

En muchos países, la jurisprudencia progresiva ha sido restringida por la fuerte tradición del positivismo y legalismo formal, que sigue viendo el derecho meramente como una herramienta técnica para resolver conflictos, como si estuviera completamente divorciado de los procesos sociopolíticos y económicos. La mayoría de los jueces observa el paradigma civilista que se enseña en los programas de estudio anacrónicos de las facultades de derecho. Las decisiones progresivas de jueces locales son revocadas con frecuencia por las cortes superiores más tradicionales.

El segundo principio estructural importante de este régimen urbanístico-legal emergente es la integración del derecho y la gestión en el marco de tres cambios legales-políticos interrelacionados:

• La restauración de la democracia local, sobre todo en Brasil, por medio del reconocimiento de varias formas de participación popular en la legislación (una condición necesaria para otorgar legitimidad y validez legal a las nuevas leyes urbanas) y la gestión urbanística (por ejemplo, mediante los procesos de presupuesto participativo);
• La descentralización de los procesos de toma de decisión, fortaleciendo las administraciones locales, analizando la necesidad de un nivel político y un accionar metropolitano, y articulando sistemas intergubernamentales para resolver problemas urbanos, sociales y ambientales acumulados; y
• La creación de una nueva serie de referencias legales para brindar mayor respaldo a las nuevas relaciones que se están estableciendo entre el Estado y la sociedad, sobre todo por medio de sociedades público-privadas y otras formas de relación entre el Estado y los sectores privados, comunitarios y de voluntarios.

Independientemente de las deficiencias que existen en este proceso, el enorme desafío que tienen los países y ciudades al promover la reforma del derecho urbanístico es garantizar el pleno cumplimiento de las nuevas leyes aprobadas.

El derecho a la ciudad

Además de reinterpretar y reformar sus sistemas legales nacionales, los juristas, políticos y activistas sociales de América Latina han promovido un debate internacional sobre un Estatuto del Derecho a la Ciudad, que reconozca plenamente los derechos colectivos. Al mismo tiempo, estos conceptos progresivos acerca de los derechos de propiedad y la naturaleza del accionar del Estado con respecto al uso del suelo y el control del desarrollo han sido enfrentados combativamente por aquéllos que siguen favoreciendo un enfoque incondicional de los derechos de propiedad y la homogenización de los regímenes de suelo y de propiedad.

En este contexto de incertidumbre conceptual, se debe ir construyendo un marco de regulación sobre el desarrollo y la gestión del suelo urbano. El planeamiento espacial es un proceso poderoso; si las leyes urbanísticas han beneficiado por mucho tiempo a ciertos grupos económicos, contribuyendo así al proceso de segregación socioespacial, la promoción de la reforma del derecho urbanístico debería contribuir a crear las condiciones para ciudades más inclusivas y equitativas.

La participación continua de juristas y políticos − como también de agencias nacionales e internacionales, universidades y organizaciones de investigación − es crucial, y puede tomar muchas formas:

• proporcionar un marco de referencia para permitir la reinterpretación de principios y cláusulas legales;
• diseminar información sobre las nuevas leyes;
• respaldar el debate sobre una nueva organización territorial y leyes de planeamiento;
• brindar incentivos para realizar investigaciones interdisciplinarias y análisis críticos donde se consideren las dimensiones legales;
• respaldar la publicación y contribuciones a doctrinas legales jurisprudencia coherentes;
• evaluar sistemáticamente las políticas y proyectos a la luz de las nuevas leyes;
• concientizar a profesionales del derecho, como jueces, fiscales y abogados;
• brindando capacitación legal a profesionales de otras áreas; y
• respaldar a instituciones comprometidas con promover la reforma legal.

La construcción de un nuevo orden urbanístico-legal en América Latina y otras regiones es un debate cambiante, lleno de contradicciones y desafíos, y ninguno de los acontecimientos recientes se puede dar por hecho. Si la mayor politización de la legislación urbanística ha creado un marco más amplio para la participación popular en el proceso de defensa de sus derechos colectivos e intereses sociales, por la misma razón las nuevas leyes han generado una mayor resistencia en los sectores conservadores.

La plena concreción de las posibilidades introducidas por el nuevo ordenamiento urbanístico-legal en Brasil, Colombia y otros países dependerá de varios factores, pero sobre todo de la renovación de los procesos de movilización sociopolítica, el cambio institucional y la reforma legal.

Referencias

Fernandes, Edésio. 2007a. Implementing the urban reform agenda in Brazil. Environment and Urbanization 19(1): 177–189.

———. 2007b. Constructing the “right to the city” in Brazil. Social and Legal Studies 16(2):201–219.

Maldonado Copello, María Mercedes. 2003. Reforma territorial y desarrollo urbano – Experiencias y perspectivas de aplicación de las leyes 9 de 1989 y 388 de 1997. Bogotá: CIDER-Universidad de los Andes/LILP/FEDEVIVIENDA.

———. 2007. El proceso de construcción del sistema urbanístico colombiano: entre reforma urbana y desarrollo territorial. En Fernandes, Edésio y Betânia Alfonsin, Direito Urbanístico: Estudos brasileiros e internacionais. Belo Horizonte, Brazil: Del Rey.

Mattos, Liana Portilho. 2006. Função social da propriedade na prática dos tribunais. Rio de Janeiro: Lumen Juris.

Sobre los autores

Edésio Fernandes es abogado, urbanista y profesor asociado en la Unidad de Planeamiento de Desarrollo de University College, Londres, el Instituto de Estudios de la Vivienda y el Desarrollo Urbano de Rotterdam y varias universidades brasileñas. Ha sido Visiting Fellow del Instituto Lincoln en el año académico 2008–2009.

María Mercedes Maldonado, abogada y urbanista, es profesora de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá e investigadora del Instituto de Estudios Urbanos de dicha universidad. Sus áreas de interés incluyen el significado legal de los derechos urbanos, los derechos de propiedad y la recuperación de plusvalías.

The use of computer models in the planning of land use and transportation and for the analysis of urban housing markets has a long and variable history. One pioneering application of a large-scale computer model that linked land use and urban transportation was the 1960 Chicago Area Transportation Study. It used a spatially disaggregated model that included a detailed transportation network and embodied the classic land use, trip generation, modal choice, and network assignment steps of urban transport planning.

Applying a more analytic approach to predicting land use patterns, an influential model formulated by Ira Lowry for Pittsburgh in 1964 used economic base theory to distribute export-oriented economic activity. This was followed by the allocation of residences and population-serving employment within the metropolitan area to derive work and shopping trip patterns.

More attention to spatially disaggregated models of urban housing markets followed in the early 1970s in the form of the Urban Institute Housing Model (representing decadal housing market changes) and the National Bureau of Economic Research Urban Simulation Model (a microanalytic model annually projecting the behavior of 85,000 households identified by workplace and residential locations). Both models were used to analyze the impact of housing allowance programs and were applied more for policy analysis than planning.

In the late 1970s, the focus turned to the development and application of sketch planning models, particularly in transportation. While these models were still spatially disaggregated, they used tens instead of hundreds of traffic zones, and transport networks were represented in less detail. Such models were adapted to represent transport-related outcomes beyond network flows, including vehicular emissions, exposure of populations to air pollution, vehicle miles of travel, and energy consumption. These smaller models migrated from mainframe computers to personal computers in the 1980s, easing their application. Their data needs were still great, but many of them made more systematic use of available spatially disaggregated census data, aiding the transfer and calibration of models among locations.

In the past two decades, the advent of geographic information systems (GIS) and the development of software to visually display data in three dimensions have been transforming the use of computers in planning. GIS-compatible data are now available from satellites, census sources, and government agencies. Local municipalities have moved rapidly to combine their data on property records with data on crime, transport, and demographics, and such municipal data files are often available on the web. While the availability of GIS data has clearly increased, variations in formats, definitions, and coverage can make it challenging to combine information from different sources into a unified data set for a metropolitan region.

The use of three-dimensional displays of spatially disaggregated data has transformed the presentation of data and model results. These techniques, including 3D maps at the metropolitan level and the ability to “fly through” a street or neighborhood at the project level, facilitate community consultation. They also make it much easier for nonspecialists to understand and participate in the process and interpret the results of alternative planning scenarios.

Along with the advances in data and its presentation, computer software has become easier to use and more widely available on open source platforms. While the codes of many earlier computer-based planning tools have been available in the public domain, using them generally has required high-level programming skills. As more of these tools are presented in user-friendly formats and integrated with other modules, the use of computer-based methods to compare and contrast alternative development scenarios will be more accessible than ever. Indeed, many planning agencies are now able to use scenario planning tools to produce alternative possible futures that provide a foundation for discussions and public consultations to identify which outcomes are desirable and which are to be avoided.

As reported elsewhere in this issue of Land Lines, the Lincoln Institute is supporting the use of various types of planning tools for research and evaluation on the effectiveness of policies intended to improve land development outcomes.

For planning processes to resolve the pressing issues of our day—such as climate change, traffic congestion, and social justice—plans must be made at the appropriate scale, must promulgate appropriate implementation tools, and must be enforced with legitimate authority. That is, our ability to meet critical challenges depends on the legal and institutional foundations of planning.

In the United States, responsibility for establishing these foundations for planning rests with the states, which in turn have delegated most land use authority to local governments. In Europe, the foundations of planning are established by each country, whose planning systems often feature national and regional plans as well as a mosaic of local plans. For better and for worse, these institutional foundations have framed the planning process on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean for most of the post-war period. But as the scope of our planning challenges continues to broaden, and discontent with the status quo continues to spread, several states and European nations have begun to experiment with new and innovative approaches to planning.

The opportunity to explore and discuss these issues brought scholars, practitioners, students, and others to Dublin, Ireland, in October 2012 for a two-day seminar sponsored by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and organized by the School of Geography, Planning, and Environmental Policy at University College Dublin and the National Center for Smart Growth at the University of Maryland. Held in the historic Newman House on St. Stephen’s Green, the meetings featured overview papers on planning in the United States and Europe and case studies of five U.S. states and five European nations. Each presentation was followed by commentary from a high-level official from the corresponding state or nation (see box 1).

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Box 1: Papers Presented at the Dublin Seminar on Planning for States and Nation/States, October 2012

Bierbaum, Marty
The New Jersey State Development Plan

Faludi, Andreas
The Europeanisation of Planning and the Role of ESPON

Fulton, Bill
Planning for Climate Change in California

Galland, Daniel
The Danish National Spatial Planning Framework

Geppert, Anna
Spatial Planning in France

Grist, Berna
The Irish National Spatial Strategy

Knaap, Gerrit
PlanMaryland: A Work in Progress

Lewis, Rebecca
The Delaware State Development Plan

Needham, Barrie
The National Spatial Strategy for The Netherlands

Salkin, Patricia
Planning Frameworks in the United States and the Role of the Federal Government

Seltzer, Ethan
Land Use Planning in Oregon: The Quilt and the Struggle for Scale

Tewdwer-Jones, Mark
National Planning for the United Kingdom

For more information about the seminar, see the program website: http://www.ucd.ie/gpep/events/seminarsworkshopsconferences/natplansymp2012

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A Framework for Spatial Planning in Europe

Planning in Europe is governed by a variety of traditions and governance structures (Faludi 2012). Some European nations have “unitary” governance structures, in which all land use authority ultimately rests with the national government. Italy and Spain have “regional” governance structures, in which land use authority is constitutionally shared between the national government and regional governments. Austria, Belgium, and Germany have “federalist” governance structures, in which particular land use functions are distributed among the national, regional, and local governments. Within these frameworks a variety of planning cultures and traditions have evolved: “amenagement duterritoire” in France; “town and country planning” in the UK; “Raumordnung” in Germany; and “ruimtelijke ordening” in The Netherlands. While these terms generally connote what “urban planning” means in the United States, there are important, nuanced, and fiercely defended differences.

The expression for urban planning used by the European Union is “spatial planning” (European Commission 1997, 24).

“Spatial planning refers to the methods used largely by the public sector to influence the future distribution of activities in space. It is undertaken with the aims of creating a more rational territorial organization of land uses and the linkages between them, to balance demands for development with the need to protect the environment, and to achieve social and economic objectives.

“Spatial planning embraces measures to co-ordinate the spatial impact of other sectoral policies, to achieve a more even distribution of economic development between regions than would otherwise be created by market forces, and to regulate the conversion of land and property uses.”

The European Union has no authority to engage in spatial planning, but directly influences spatial planning outcomes through regional development initiatives, environmental directives, and structural and cohesion funding. This goal is articulated in the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) signed in 1998 by the ministers responsible for spatial planning in the member states and the members of the European Commission responsible for regional policy (Faludi 2002).

Modern spatial planning in the European context is broadly understood to include national, regional, and local planning, where national plans provide broad national development strategies and guidelines for plans at lower levels of government; regional plans integrate physical development with social, economic, and environmental policies but without site-level specificity; and local plans are site-specific and address the physical and urban design elements of the built environment. While none of the planning frameworks for the member nations matches this neat hierarchical ideal exactly, the ESDP has influenced planning activity in every nation.

The ESDP itself is based on longstanding European planning traditions dating to World War II, when national development or reconstruction plans were indisputably necessary for post-war reparations. Many European nations still have national development plans and complementary national spatial strategies. But the influence and importance of those plans has diminished steadily since reconstruction. In the last decade in particular, nations once known for their ambitious and extensive commitment to planning—France, Denmark, and the United Kingdom among them—have failed to adopt new national plans and expressly placed greater emphasis on regional and local plans.

National European Spatial Strategies and Frameworks

France

Although France is a unitary, centralized nationstate, the national government has never played a leading role in spatial planning. Rather, responsibility for spatial planning was officially transferred to regional and local governments in devolutionary reforms adopted in 1982 and 2003 (Geppert 2012). Although coordination between governments at different levels continues, this process results more often in joint investment strategies rather than in shared spatial visions or common objectives. Before most other nations, the French national government began focusing less on spatial planning and more on sectoral policies, leaving spatial issues for lower levels of government.

Denmark

Planning in Denmark historically began with a comprehensive national planning framework (Galland 2012). Over the last two decades, however, as a result of interrelated political and economic factors, the land use roles of national, local, and regional governments within the national territory have significantly transformed the scope, structure, and understanding of Danish spatial planning (figure 1).

Among the implications of this reform, several spatial planning responsibilities have been decentralized to the local level while regional planning for Greater Copenhagen and other sectoral functions have been transferred to the national level. Moreover, the recent abolition of the county level of government has increased the risk of uncoordinated spatial planning and decreased coherence across diverse policy institutions and instruments.

The Netherlands

The Netherlands has perhaps the longest and best-known tradition of national spatial planning, and its plans include industrial as well as detailed spatial policies (Needham 2012). For several decades, Dutch national plans influenced the distribution of people and activities throughout the country. In the first decades after World War II, all levels of government—national, provincial, and municipal—tended to work together in their spatial planning. In the 1990s, however, they started to move apart. In response, the national government strengthened its own powers over the local governments (a form of centralization), and at the same time reduced its own ambitions to pursue a national spatial strategy (a form of decentralization). The latest national spatial strategy expressly withdraws from some planning tasks previously carried out by the national government.

United Kingdom

In the early 1900s, the UK Parliament divested its direct powers to plan; instead, the powers of intervention, new state housing development, and regulation of private housing development were handed over to local governments (Tewdwr-Jones 2012). In the following decades, the central government did acquire new planning powers of its own as a consequence of World War II and the need to rebuild cities, infrastructure, and the economy in the national interest. Since 1945, central government has retained these powers, while also permitting the monitoring of local authorities in their operation of the planning system.

These powers have changed dramatically over the last 70 years. After 1999, devolution in Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland further fragmented the meaning of “national” in policy and planning terms. During the 2000s, the push toward regional spatial planning in England also rebalanced national planning matters toward sub-national interests. As a result of this trend in devolution, decentralization, regionalism, and localism over the last 20 years, it is increasingly questionable whether the UK now possesses anything that could be regarded as a national planning system, since so much has changed spatially and within policy-making institutions and processes across different parts of the country.

Ireland

Ireland is one of few European nations not following the trend toward decentralization of planning authority, partly due to the fact that its planning system has been fully decentralized (Grist 2012). Largely following EU guidelines, Ireland adopted a series of national development plans, the latest one being the National Development Plan 2007–2013. Based on recommendations in the previous national plan, the Department of Environment, Community and Local Government in 2002 developed the Ireland National Spatial Strategy. This strategy identified critical gateways and hubs and articulated plans to decentralize economic activity from Dublin and throughout the island.

Following a turbulent period that saw the rise and fall of the Celtic Tiger, blamed in part on lax local planning policies allied with extensive incentivizing of property development and political corruption, the country is now revisiting that strategy, strengthening regional development guidelines, and imposing new consistency requirements on local governments.

Under the new evidence-based planning regime, local plans must conform more closely with regional planning guidelines, and local plans will have quantitative limits on how much development can be allowed. The future role of the National Spatial Strategy is currently in the review process as the new government, elected following the property crash in Ireland, examines the planning and development issues that prevailed during the property bubble.

The Federal Government and Land Use in the United States

The U.S. federal government, like the European Union, has no authority to plan and manage land use, but probably has a greater influence on the location and nature of development patterns (Salkin 2012). Besides the billions of dollars it allocates for transportation infrastructure, social services, development, and redevelopment, the federal government is a major landowner of more than 630 million acres across the country. Federal regulations are also highly influential. The Clean Air and Water Acts, for example, impose no restrictions on land use per se, but in establishing targets for ambient air quality and nutrient loadings to rivers, lakes, and streams, both acts profoundly influence local land use plans, regulations, and development patterns.

More recently, President Barack Obama’s administration has established a new channel of federal influence on land use planning and regulation. While the federal government continues to refrain from direct intervention in local land use governance, the secretaries of the Departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development and of the Environmental Protection Agency signed a memorandum of understanding establishing the Sustainable Communities Partnership. To promote six principles of sustainable communities, these agencies launched a number of new grants programs, including the Regional Sustainable Communities Planning Grants. To be eligible for such a grant, local governments must form inter-organizational consortia that include the metropolitan planning organization (MPO), the central city, the majority of local governments, and a representation of civic and advocacy groups.

While the stated purposes of these path-breaking grants include urban revitalization, environmental protection, social justice, and sustainable development, an equally important purpose is to establish new inter-institutional relationships by promoting greater inclusion and participation. Regional Sustainable Communities Planning is now underway in 74 metropolitan areas across the country. It remains to be seen, however, whether the incentives offered to local governments to engage in regional planning are sufficient to get them to participate in regional plan implementation without additional state-level intervention.

State Plans and State Planning Frameworks

Every state established a framework for local planning and regulation in the 1920s and 1930s based on the standard planning and zoning enabling acts prepared by the U.S. Department of Commerce. Despite expectations of extensive institutional change, characterized in the “Quiet Revolution” more than 40 years ago, most states merely authorize local governments to plan (Salkin 2012).

Others, like Oregon, mandate, review, and approve local plans (Seltzer 2012). If local governments do not submit plans that meet the state’s land use goals and guidelines, the state can withhold funds or the authority to issue building permits. Several unique land use institutions also support the Oregon planning system, including a state planning commission, a land use court of appeals, and a directly elected regional government. Though simple in structure, and frequently challenged in the courts and at the ballot box, the Oregon system has a reputation as one of the most, if not the most, effective land use systems in the United States (Ingram et al. 2009).

California is among the states that delegated substantial land use authority to local governments. Although major development projects have to pass a complex mini-National Environment Policy Act process, and the California Coastal Commission was an innovative new statewide institution in its day, local planning remains dominant. But in 2008, the state adopted a bold new initiative to address climate change—Senate Bill 375, which required MPOs to develop transportation and land use plans that meet state greenhouse gas targets. The difficulty is that local governments, not MPOs, retain land use authority in California. MPOs and the state governments are providing incentives for local governments to adopt plans that conform with metropolitan plans, but it remains uncertain whether the combination of financial and other incentives are sufficient to nudge local governments to follow the MPO plans (Fulton 2012).

At the other extreme, plans for entire states are not common in the United States. In response to federal requirements, most states do have transportation plans, and some have economic development plans, workforce development plans, or climate action plans, but only five have state development plans—Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Rhode Island.

New Jersey and Delaware have perhaps the best- and least-known state plans, respectively. New Jersey adopted its State Planning Act in 1985, requiring the state planning commission to develop, adopt, and implement the New Jersey State Development and Redevelopment Plan (Bierbaum 2012). The planning process included a complex cross-acceptance procedure for identifying and resolving differences between the state and local governments. Since its adoption, the influence of and attention received by the plan has ebbed and flowed over successive gubernatorial administrations. Most recently, Governor Chris Christie’s administration developed an entirely new state plan, focused primarily on economic development without the cross-acceptance process. The state plan commission, however, has not yet adopted the plan.

The Delaware plan is much less well-known and far less controversial than the New Jersey plan, and both the content and process are less complex (Lewis 2012). The Delaware plan includes five general land designations (figure 2). It depends on state-local coordination and relies on the threat of withholding infrastructure funding (of which the state pays a significant share) to incentivize compliance by local governments. Because the state did not begin tracking data on development patterns until 2008, and does not maintain spatial data on state expenditures, it is difficult to discern the impact of the approach on development and the consistency of state spending with the state plan map.

Maryland is the only state that rivals California and Oregon in its adoption of bold new approaches to planning, based on its long tradition of leadership in land use and environmental policy (Knaap 2012). Maryland established the first state plan commission in 1933, and broke into the national spotlight in 1997, when it adopted the path-breaking Smart Growth and Neighborhood Conservation Act. Since 1997 the use of state expenditures to provide incentives for smart growth has been the signature feature of the Maryland approach. Long before anyone in Maryland spoke the words “smart growth,” however, the state had passed legislation in 1959 that required the Maryland Department of Planning to develop and adopt a state development plan. More than 50 years later, the administration of Governor Martin O’Malley finally met that requirement.

On December 19, 2011, Governor O’Malley signed PlanMaryland, establishing the first new state development plan in the United States in many years (figure 3). But unlike state plans in New Jersey or Delaware, the Maryland plan is more procedural than substantive. Specifically, it established six plan designation categories and, following a longstanding Maryland tradition, enabled local governments to allocate land for any or all designated uses. State agencies would then target programmatic funds to each of these areas. Since the plan was signed, state agencies have been developing and refining implementation plans, and local governments have just recently begun submitting plans for state certification.

Concluding Comments

The frameworks for land use and spatial planning vary extensively across Europe and the United States. On both sides of the Atlantic, local governments carry much of the load, especially with respect to community, neighborhood, and site-specific details. But the role of regions, states, and nations remains important.

Contrary to its reputation in the United States, planning in many European nations has decentralized extensively. Few European nations are engaged in full-scale national plans that guide national investments and land use regulations. In fact, planning in Europe, while still far more comprehensive in sectoral details than in the United States, shares many policy features with its North American counterpart. An interesting exception is Ireland, which continues to expand the role of national and regional governments partly as a response to the recent period of extremely decentralized planning that failed to take into account and implement the national strategy. Ireland is also one of the few countries adhering to the broad principles of spatial planning formally adopted by the European Union.

In the United States, neither state development planning nor state approval of local plans is a rapidly growing practice. Indeed, despite the demonstrated success of the Oregon program and the growing recognition of the need for horizontal and vertical policy integration, land use planning in the United States remains a fiercely local affair. Although both the state of California and the federal government are providing financial incentives for intergovernmental coordination and planning at the metropolitan scale, it remains far from certain that incentives alone will secure the changes in local plans and regulations required to institute meaningful adjustments in land consumption, travel behavior, and access to opportunities.

New approaches are needed to make cites and metropolitan areas more productive, equitable, and environmentally sustainable in light of anticipated challenges in the future. If these issues cannot be addressed adequately, other kinds of experiments in institutional planning reforms may become more common in many countries.

About the Authors

Gerrit Knaap is professor of urban studies and planning, director of the National Center for Smart Growth, and associate dean of the School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at the University of Maryland.

Zorica Nedovic-Budic is professor of spatial planning and geographic information systems (GIS) in the School of Geography, Planning and Environmental Policy at University College Dublin.

References

Denmark Ministry of the Environment. 2006. The 2006 national planning report–In brief. Copenhagen. http://www.sns.dk/udgivelser/2006/87-7279-728-2/html/default_eng.htm

European Commission. 1997. The EU compendium of spatial planning systems and policies. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.

Faludi, Andreas. 2002. European spatial planning. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Ingram, Gregory K., Armando Carbonell, Yu-Hung Hong, and Anthony Flint. 2009. Smart growth policies: An evaluation of programs and outcomes. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Stephanie Pollack, subdirectora del Centro Dukakis de Política Urbana y Regional de la Universidad Northeastern, detectó una curiosa anomalía cuando analizó los resultados de una encuesta sobre las necesidades de transporte público de los residentes de bajos ingresos en Massachusetts. La encuesta pedía que se indicara el principal modo de transporte, y daba las opciones tradicionales, como tomar el tren o el autobús. Pero no había ninguna casilla para marcar lo que resultó ser el modo más común de transporte: docenas de encuestados respondieron “el automóvil de otra persona”.

Para Pollack, este descubrimiento subrayó la dificultad de diseñar sistemas de transporte acordes con las necesidades de la población, así como la necesidad de contar con mejores maneras para medir y hacer participar a la gente para poder suplir las verdaderas necesidades de transporte público de los usuarios. Como parte de un proyecto llamado The Toll of Transportation (La carga del transporte), el Centro Dukakis trató de determinar cómo llegan los residentes adonde tienen que ir en ciudades como Lynn, Worcester, Springfield y East Boston. Pero la categoría “automóvil de otra persona” no formaba parte de ninguna lista de datos estándar de transporte. “Medimos la equidad en educación y en sanidad, pero no en transporte”, dijo Pollack a los escritores y editores reunidos para el Foro periodístico sobre el suelo y el entorno edificado, realizado del 28 al 29 de marzo de 2014 en Cambridge, Massachusetts. “No tenemos el concepto de cómo debería ser un sistema de transporte ‘justo’”.

El tema del foro fue la infraestructura: para quién es, cómo planificarla y pagarla, y por qué necesitamos inversiones más inteligentes en los entornos urbanos del siglo XXI. Esta fue la séptima edición de esta reunión para periodistas de dos días de duración, patrocinada por el Instituto Lincoln, la Fundación Nieman de Periodismo de la Universidad Harvard, y la Escuela de Posgrado de Diseño (Graduate School of Design o GSD) de la Universidad Harvard.

Pollock compartió también con los participantes su investigación sobre el desarrollo orientado al transporte público (transit-oriented development o TOD), una política que se fomenta cada vez más en las ciudades por medio de reformas de zonificación e incentivos económicos. Los datos revelaron algunos resultados problemáticos sobre el uso y la equidad del transporte público. Los residentes de ingresos más altos que se mudan a zonas TOD (que se convierten rápidamente en lugares caros para vivir) en general no usan transporte público, mientras que los residentes que sí lo usan tienen que residir más lejos de las estaciones, en barrios económicamente más asequibles. Este desplazamiento aumenta el costo y la complejidad de sus viajes para ir al trabajo y volver. Además, en un tercio de las zonas TOD estudiadas, el uso del transporte público se redujo después de haberse introducido el desarrollo.

En otra presentación, Judith Grant Long, profesora asociada de Planificación Urbana en GSD, analizó megaeventos, como la Copa del Mundo y las Olimpiadas, que inducen a las ciudades a invertir miles de millones de dólares en infraestructura. Hay poca evidencia de un retorno positivo a la inversión en términos de puestos de trabajo permanente, ingresos o incluso la imagen de la ciudad, indicó Long. El Comité Olímpico Internacional podría ayudar a las ciudades a planificar mejor y organizar juegos “del tamaño correcto”, sugirió. Barcelona, Roma, Tokio, Múnich, Montreal y Londres han podido transformar con cierto éxito las villas olímpicas en áreas de uso a largo plazo que benefician a un sector más amplio de la población una vez que se acaban los juegos.

Las sociedades público-privadas, la construcción y operación privada de rutas y los sistemas de peaje han sido innovaciones recientes para el financiamiento de infraestructura, dijo José A. Gómez-Ibáñez, profesor de GSD y de la Escuela Kennedy de Harvard. Pero se puede decir que desde que se completó el sistema de rutas interestatales en los EE.UU., el papel del gobierno federal no ha sido claro. El desafío estriba en demostrarle al público quién se beneficiará de los proyectos, para poder justificar su financiamiento.

Los gobiernos deberán ser más inteligentes y enfocar bien el objetivo al construir futuros sistemas de transporte y otros tipos de infraestructura, sobre todo cuando las áreas metropolitanas tratan de aumentar su resiliencia en vista de los impactos inevitables del cambio climático, declararon varios ponentes.

Rich Cavallaro, presidente de Skanska USA Civil Inc., citó la calificación de D+ (en una escala de A a F) en el último “boletín de calificaciones” de infraestructura emitido por la Sociedad Americana de Ingenieros Civiles. Dicho grupo estima que el país tendrá que gastar 1,6 billones de dólares más de lo que indican los planes actualmente para poder contar con una infraestructura de nivel aceptable en todos los sectores. En contraste con proyectos inmensamente caros, como esclusas similares a las del río Támesis en el Reino Unido, Cavallaro se inclina por tomar medidas más asequibles, como equipar a los túneles del metro con tapones inflables gigantes, elevar las rejas de ventilación y subestaciones eléctricas, y diseñar los garajes de estacionamiento e instalaciones similares para que se puedan inundarse y limpiarse después, cuando las aguas retrocedan.

Varios países realizan una mejor tarea de coordinación y recuperación en casos de desastres, según las encuestas realizadas por Robert B. Olshansky, profesor de Planificación Urbana y Regional de la Universidad de Illinois en Urbana-Champaign, y Laurie A. Johnson, presidenta de Laurie Johnson Consulting|Research. La construcción de resiliencia a largo plazo como parte de este proceso fue objeto de un reciente informe del Instituto Lincoln, titulado Lecciones de Sandy.

Susannah C. Drake, presidenta de dlandstudio pllc, describió enfoques creativos, como el rediseño de la protección de la costa en el sur de Manhattan y el sellado de trazados subterráneos que pasan debajo de barrios urbanos. La nación no puede simplemente reconstruir lo que existía antes de un desastre, sobre todo ahora que los avances en tecnología han abaratado el costo de infraestruc-tura, en comparación con las inversiones masivas que se realizaron en el New Deal. Marcus M. Quigley, presidente de Geosyntec Consultants, exploró el uso de tecnología inteligente y controles dinámicos para transformar la construcción de grandes obras de infraestructura. “Podemos cambiar la manera de construir la infraestructura para que actúe a nuestro favor”, dijo. “Cada vez que repavimentamos una calle o acera, estamos perdiendo una oportunidad”.

También se habló sobre el lado negativo de la infraestructura inteligente. Ryan Ellis, fellow posdoctoral de investigación en el Centro Belfer de Ciencias y Asuntos Internacionales de la Escuela Kennedy de Harvard, abordó el complejo problema de seguridad e infraestructura, revelando el submundo de ciberataques, vulnerabilidades y “días cero”. Los hackers espían el correo electrónico continuamente y podrían sabotear nuestra red eléctrica, el control del tráfico aéreo y los sistemas financieros. La clave, dijo Ellis, está en “diseñar ahora teniendo en cuenta la seguridad”, porque “es difícil incorporar la seguridad después”. Y añadió que los planificadores involucrados en construir ciudades inteligentes deben tener muy presente el tema de la seguridad.

El impacto interconectado de la urbanización global requiere un marco más amplio para la infraestructura urbana que exceda las áreas metropolitanas individuales, dijo Neil Brenner, profesor de Teoría Urbana en GSD. “Tenemos que actualizar nuestro mapa cognitivo de la urbanización”, dijo. Pierre Bélanger, profesor asociado de Arquitectura del Paisaje de GSD, predijo que trabajar con la naturaleza -incluso dejando que ciertas áreas abandonadas vuelvan a su estado silvestre- podría eclipsar el enfoque tradicional de controlar el agua y canalizar los arroyos.

El liderazgo político es la clave para reinventar y diseñar nueva infraestructura en el entorno urbano, dijo la arquitecta paisajista Margie Ruddick. Afortunadamente, los alcaldes son algunos de los líderes más innovadores para abordar estos tipos de desafíos, dijo David Gergen, analista senior de CNN y director del Centro de Liderazgo Público en la Escuela Kennedy de Harvard. Es raro que un alcalde llegue a ser presidente, pero resuelven problemas prácticos importantes, dijo Gergen, que fue el orador invitado en la velada nocturna tradicional del foro en la Casa Walter Lippmann de la Fundación Nieman. “Es en las ciudades donde se están llevando a cabo los experimentos”, dijo.

Janette Sadik-Khan, ex comisionada de la Ciudad de Nueva York y en la actualidad miembro de Bloomberg Associates, también se refirió a las dificultades políticas de transformar el paisaje urbano. Hizo notar que las ciclovías, el programa de bicicletas compartidas y los espacios peatonales en Times Square provocaron la oposición por parte de automovilistas, dueños de negocios y otros que consideraban estas iniciativas poco prácticas y “vagamente francesas”. Sin embargo, muchos comerciantes han reportado desde entonces un gran aumento de su actividad debido a un mayor trán-sito de peatones, y que las sillas portátiles de las áreas peatonales están continuamente ocupadas.

“Cuando se ofrecen más opciones, la gente vota con sus pies, con sus asientos y con los candados de sus bicicletas”, expresó. “Los neoyorquinos han modificado las expectativas respecto a sus calles”.

El foro incluye tradicionalmente dos sesiones dedicadas a la “práctica del arte”. Brian McGrory, editor de The Boston Globe, describió los esfuerzos para integrar un periodismo “ardientemente relevante” en un modelo de negocio digital que sea sostenible. The Globe tiene más lectores que nunca, expresó. Inga Saffron, crítico de arquitectura de The Philadelphia Inquirer, ganadora del Premio Pulitzer poco después del foro, junto con el crítico de arquitectura Blair Kamin del Chicago Tribune, Jerold Kayden de GSD y Gregory K. Ingram y Armando Carbonell, ambos del Instituto Lincoln, mantuvieron un coloquio sobre la interacción entre periodistas y fuentes expertas.

Varios participantes de los 40 periodistas y fellows de Nieman publicaron notas sobre el foro, incluyendo Roger K. Lewis del Washington Post, Tim Bryant del St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Christopher Swope de Citiscope y Josh Stephens de Planetizen.

Anthony Flint es fellow y director de relaciones públicas en el Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, y autor de Wrestling with Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took on New York’s Master Builder and Transformed the American City (Luchando con Moisés: Cómo Jane Jacobs se enfrentó al Jefe de Construcciones de Nueva York y transformó la ciudad norteamericana) (Random House, 2011). Fue fellow Loeb en 2000–2001.

The Impacts of Land Use Regulations in Latin America

Cynthia Goytia is a professor in the urban economics and public policy graduate programs at Torcuato Di Tella University (TDTU) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She serves as the director of both TDTU’s M.Sc. in urban economics program and its Urban Policy and Housing Research Center (CIPUV). Cynthia has also lectured at the University of Cambridge and London School of Economics.

Since 2009, the Lincoln Institute has supported her research on the impacts of residential land use regulations on informality, urban extension, and land values in Latin American cities. In her consulting practice, she has worked with a number of government departments in Argentina and other Latin American countries, as well as several international organizations such as the World Bank, UN University World Institute for Development Economics Research, and the Development Bank of Latin America, among others.

Cynthia holds a M.Sc. in urban economics and a Ph.D. in regional and urban planning from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

LAND LINES: Local land use regulation is a difficult topic to tackle. Although zoning and other interventions can be a strong remedy for market failures, they can have unplanned adverse effects. How did you come to take on this type of research?

CYNTHIA GOYTIA: I became interested in the economic analysis of land use interventions as I began to recognize that land markets are about more than just land and location. Over the last 30 years or so, land use regulation and zoning have become much more important than land taxation in determining quality of life for people in cities. And over time, I noticed that land use interventions designed to achieve socially desirable ends sometimes had unintended negative consequences that planners and policy makers had totally failed to anticipate. For example, government regulations affect access to a wide range of public goods and, as a result, may lead to increased residential segregation and informal development.

All these facts encouraged me to research the effects of government interventions on the land market. I also realized that part of the knowledge gap about regulatory effects in Latin America resulted from the lack of comparable and systematic data on land use. So in 2005, I began an extensive research agenda on this subject, which started as a cooperative effort with Argentina’s national government and later gained the strong support of the Lincoln Institute.

LL: How relevant to Latin America are the results of recent studies claiming that over-regulation of land use in developed countries drives up housing prices?

CG: Our empirical research provides evidence that by increasing prices in the formal land market, thus reducing the supply of housing affordable to low-income households, some aspects of land use regulation could promote more informal development. For example, the Land Use Law enacted in Buenos Aires Province 38 years ago defined new requirements for minimum lot size and forced developers to finance the infrastructure for new subdivisions. These requirements priced low-income households out of the legal land market and into the informal sector.

While the overall objectives of the law were not bad, they had unintended consequences for housing affordability. As a result, the land market was severely skewed to the higher-income segment, while the low-income submarket—households that previously had been allowed to construct their own houses on residential lots—was practically dismantled by the time the new land use standards were enacted and enforced. Not surprisingly, these types of constraints have led to illegal occupation of land in nearly two-thirds of the municipal jurisdictions forming Argentina’s metropolitan areas, including Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area.

LL: Many analysts assert that exclusionary building and land use codes are largely responsible for rampant informality in the region. How would you respond to that criticism?

CG: My recent research supports the claim that land use regulation is used not only to correct for market failures, but it can constitute a way to achieve exclusionary aims as well. We have found that municipalities with large shares of both educated households and disadvantaged populations tend to impose more restrictive residential zoning to maximize the benefits that formal home owners receive from their local governments.

There are some interesting correlations between the use of exclusionary measures in some jurisdictions and conditions in nearby areas. For example, municipalities in Buenos Aires with stringent policies about infrastructure provision are surrounded by municipalities with large shares of households that lack basic services. Indeed, under-provision of infrastructure is central to the idea of urban exclusion. The local government may thus attempt to indirectly regulate the scope of informal development by failing to pave the roads or provide connections to water and sewerage services. Under-servicing informal settlements may be a strategic device to discourage migration to areas experiencing population growth pressure, which are already highly populated, richer, and reluctant to share their tax base with lower-income migrants.

LL: Among the many factors accounting for informality in Latin America, where would you place land use regulation?

CG: Our research provides evidence of a link between land use regulation and the housing choices of urban households in Argentina. Municipalities that have enacted more land regulatory measures also have larger informal sectors, suggesting that the regulatory environment severely constrains development of formal low-income land and housing markets. For example, minimum lot sizes set up land consumption levels that low-income households cannot afford. Moreover, these regulations determine the amount of housing that can be built on lots by setting maximum heights, floor area ratios, or allocation of open space—skewing the supply to the upper-income market. Relatively high project approval costs (in terms of both time and money) also have negative impacts by raising the final cost of housing and/or discouraging developers from building housing for low-income households. At the same time, however, inclusionary policies—including value capture or betterment levies, impact fees, and setting vacant land aside for affordable housing—reduce the likelihood that households resort to informal land markets.

One of the most important concepts we need to understand is that informality is not merely a poverty issue, but rather a land market distortion that affects households of all incomes. Therefore, land use regulation should contribute to the design of policies that are able to address the fundamental causes of informality and hold down the prices of serviced land.

LL: The efficiency-equity trade-off seems to be at the heart of debates about land use regulation. This trade-off is played out under different rules when it comes to higher-income and lower-income urban areas, as plainly revealed in Brazil’s special zones of social interest (ZEIS)—low-income areas preserved for affordable housing by the state.

CG: You are right. Rules such as general-purpose urban zoning regulations are quite different from the pro-poor standards allowed in ZEIS. General-purpose zoning is meant to improve the efficiency of urban land use, especially in the formal housing market. Adequate planning facilitates timely infrastructure investment and large-scale urban development. Overall, efficient land use contributes to improved urban productivity. But many times, it does not in itself ensure affordability for lower-income groups.

At present, we do not have a rigorous evaluation of ZEIS effects, but it is important to consider two facts when it comes to the less stringent standards set for low-income housing. First, the rationale for allowing different regulations for particular segments of the housing market is that doing so enhances general welfare. Second, the pragmatic solution of regularizing informal areas raises the question of why municipalities do not allow higher densities in the first place, provided that the appropriate infrastructure is put in place. In theory, allowing higher-density development in formal areas would increase the overall supply of buildable land, thereby reducing prices and increasing the availability of affordable housing.

LL: Are there any good examples of politically feasible, socially inclusive land use regulations?

CG: In most developing countries, the challenge is to design policies that address the fundamental causes of informality and promote social inclusion. Jurisdictions that have adopted—and effectively implemented—inclusionary measures are now better able to provide more affordable housing options in the formal market. But there are at least two distinct types of approaches, which push the land use regulation agenda in our cities in different ways and have various implications.

The first type of approach focuses on easing land use restrictions that disproportionately affect the supply of low-income housing. We know that higher land costs due to “forced consumption” make housing less affordable to lower-income families. Revising these types of standards—such as allowing condominium units in low-density areas (where most low-income households live), increasing floor area ratios, and reducing minimum lot sizes for subdivisions where infrastructure is phased in—helps to improve housing affordability in the formal market. These measures also make it more profitable to develop low-income housing, thereby increasing the incentives to supply units for this market segment. There are now some examples of formal developers building low-income subdivisions and affordable housing units in some municipalities where population and affordable housing demand have been growing fast, such as La Matanza, in the Buenos Aires metro area.

The second type of land use innovation involves making changes to regulatory frameworks. Government jurisdictions at all levels are now enacting a variety of policies that play a more active role in land and infrastructure development and finance, guiding urban growth and infill development while also capturing the value of large-scale public investments. Rosario, Argentina, provides a great example. The government there grants building rights—notably in high-income areas—as long as the proceeds are used to fund the public investments necessary to support higher densities and to provide serviced land for affordable housing or for informal settlements.

I have already underscored the importance of infrastructure spending. Over the last decade, metropolitan agglomerations in Argentina were expanding 3.5 percent annually on average while the population was growing by 1.2 percent annually. This development path makes the financing of infrastructure imperative. Some municipal governments have responded by implementing betterment levies. Trenque Lauquen is a case in point. The municipality has used the levies not only to finance infrastructure investments, but also to manage urban growth and make land available for different uses, including low-income housing. Although limited in scope, this success shows that betterment levies are a feasible and flexible instrument that can help expand urban services. It also prevents informal land subdividers from exploiting the gap between the prices of raw and fully serviced formal land.

LL: Based on what we know and do not know about land use regulation in Latin America, which research priorities do you think the Lincoln Institute should pursue?

CG: The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy has been doing a great job in generating knowledge about land use regulation in Latin America through its support of research, seminars, and other activities, and by encouraging valuable interactions among a broad audience of urban planners and policy makers in the region. Now we need to build on this knowledge to promote policies that improve land and housing affordability, and to identify the sources of supply distortions that lead to low compliance and widespread informality.

This means improving our understanding of the impacts of regulatory innovations now taking place in the region. Although we have some case studies about the effects of these new tools, we need to carry out a comprehensive review of the ways cities, municipalities, states, and national offices define their regulatory frameworks. Creating a comprehensive database of this information for the main urban agglomerations in the region would allow comparisons over time and across municipalities.

To this end, we at CIPUV performed a nationwide survey of planning officials about local land use regulations in Argentina’s metropolitan areas. The set of indicators assembled in the CIPUV Index of Land Policy (CILP) provides detailed information on such parameters as the existence of land use plans, the authorities involved in zoning changes and residential project approval processes, the existence of building restrictions, the costs related to project approvals, and the implementation of value capture instruments.

Over the years, our research has started to reshape planners’ attitudes about regulatory frameworks. We have initiated a dialogue with planners and public officials in the hope of gaining new insights about the role of land markets within cities and the impacts of regulations. In addition, our standardized indices have enabled comparisons of regulations across municipalities as well as analysis at the metropolitan and state levels. As a result, some municipal and provincial jurisdictions in Argentina have recently updated, or are in the process of updating, their land use plans and laws, some of which date back nearly half a century.

LL: Would it be feasible to develop an international version of the CIPUV Index of Land Policy?

CG: Yes. Taking up such an initiative would have two important effects. First, it would allow comparisons of metropolitan areas throughout Latin America and increase the visibility of successes that some cities have had in increasing land affordability. And second, it would provide fertile ground for policy makers and researchers to learn which initiatives lead to better outcomes. It is not only feasible, but a central challenge that should be addressed in the coming years.

The largest of the post-World War II suburbs were the size of cities, with populations between 50,000 and 80,000, but they looked like overgrown subdivisions. In Levittown, Lakewood and Park Forest, model houses on curving streets held families similar in age, race and income whose suburban lifestyles were reflected in the nationally popular television sitcoms of the 1950s. The planning of these suburbs was often presented in the popular press as hasty, driven by the need to house war heroes returned from the Battle of the Bulge or Bataan; any problems could be excused by the rush. But, haste was not the case. Political lobbying during the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s shaped postwar housing and urban design. The postwar suburbs were constructed at great speed, but that is a different part of their story.

Postwar suburbs represented the deliberate intervention of the federal government into the financing of single-family housing across the nation. For the first time, the federal government provided massive aid directed to developers (whose loans were insured by the Federal Housing Administration, FHA) and white male homeowners (who could get Veterans’ Administration guarantees for mortgages at four percent, with little or nothing down, and then deduct their mortgage interest payments from their taxable income for 30 years). The federal government came to this policy after fierce debates involving architects, planners, politicians, and business and real estate interests.

Herbert Hoover, as secretary of commerce (1921-1928) and then as president (1929-1933), drew the federal government toward housing policy to promote home building as a business strategy for economic recovery from the Depression. Working closely with the National Association of Real Estate Boards (NAREB), Hoover’s Commerce Department had established a Division of Building and Housing in 1921, and went on to establish and support Better Homes in America, Inc. By 1930, this coalition had over 7,000 local chapters composed of bankers, real estate brokers, builders, and manufacturers who lobbied for government support for private development of small homes to boost consumption.

In 1931, Hoover ran a National Conference on Homebuilding and Home Ownership that explored federal investment, discussing not only financing and construction of houses, but also building codes, zoning codes, subdivision layout, and the location of industry and commerce. President Franklin D. Roosevelt followed Hoover and launched numerous New Deal programs in planning and housing. The National Housing Act created the FHA in 1934; the Resettlement Administration, created by Executive Order in 1935, sponsored the Greenbelt Towns; the U.S. Housing Act (Wagner Act) created the U.S. Housing Authority to sponsor public housing in 1937. Which of these programs would be the most influential?

The RPAA and the Labor Housing Conference

Housing activists such as Catherine Bauer and Edith Elmer Wood were members of the Regional Planning Association of America (RPAA), along with planners Lewis Mumford, Clarence Stein, and Benton MacKaye. They advocated federal support for public housing through the Wagner Act. Bauer, an architectural critic and author of Modern Housing, was also executive secretary of the Labor Housing Conference, which campaigned for the design of multi-family housing with child care centers and recreational amenities. Projects such as the Hosiery Workers Housing in Philadelphia and the Harlem River Houses for African Americans in New York, designed by teams of noted architects in the 1930s, demonstrated the excellence possible for multi-family urban projects. Nevertheless, conservative Republicans refused to vote for the Wagner Act in 1935 and 1936, passing it in 1937 with severe cost restrictions, means testing for tenants, and slum clearance provisions to protect private landlords. These provisions meant that design would be minimal and residents would be poor. The Labor Housing Conference members bemoaned the final result as the “Anti-Housing Act.”

The Realtors’ Washington Committee

Many of NAREB’s members, large-scale land subdividers of the 1920s, were originally real estate brokerage firms, not homebuilders. (They left the home building to small contractors or mail order house companies.) By the 1930s, many of these subdividers realized they could enhance profits by erecting houses on some of their lots to enhance the image of community and stability they were selling. They renamed themselves “community builders.” Herbert U. Nelson, NAREB’s chief lobbyist, became executive director of the Realtors’ Washington Committee, which lobbied hard for the FHA, so that federal sources of capital and guarantees of mortgages would provide a safety net for the subdividers’ building operations. Both the Urban Land Institute (ULI) and the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) formed in the early 1940s as spin-offs from NAREB.

Beginning in 1934, the FHA insured bank loans to developers so they could purchase land, subdivide it, and construct houses on it with very little of their own capital involved. These loans of 80 or 90 percent of project cost eliminated risk and were made long before the developers had buyers. In return, the developers had to agree to submit site plans and housing plans for review by the FHA, which issued booklets offering conservative advice about architecture and site design. Meant to correct the worst abuses of corrupt builders, these manuals on small houses and on “planning profitable neighborhoods” rejected regional styles, scorned modern architecture and, according to architect Keller Easterling, instituted mediocre “subdivision products.” Kenneth Jackson has documented that the FHA’s concern for resale value also led it to refuse loans for racially mixed neighborhoods. Only all-white subdivisions, enforced by deed restrictions, would qualify.

The Realtors’ Washington Committee supported the FHA. It also lobbied against federal government funding for any other approaches to housing, including complete towns planned by the Resettlement Administration, wartime housing for workers constructed by the government that might provide competition for private efforts, and public housing in the cities. Allied with NAREB were the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the U.S. League of Savings and Loans, the National Retail Lumber Dealers Association, and others.

Housing Hearings of 1947-1948

After the war ended, demand for housing was intense. People were doubled up with relatives, friends and strangers. Veterans lived in converted chicken coops and camped out in cars. The need for shelter was only expected to grow as waves of demobilized veterans, wartime savings at the ready, married and formed new households.

Although they were deeply disappointed by some aspects of the 1937 housing legislation, Catherine Bauer and other advocates of multi-family housing in urban residential neighborhoods did not retreat. They campaigned for expanded public housing through better legislation in the form of the bipartisan Taft Ellender Wagner housing bill first introduced in 1945 and supported by such groups as the AFL, the CIO and the Conference of Mayors.

These advocates found themselves in a shouting match with NAREB lobbyists who were busy discrediting public construction of shelter as “un-American” and promoting government subsidies for private housing development. Historians Rosalyn Baxandall and Elizabeth Ewen, in their book Picture Windows, document the hearings on housing dominated by Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1947 and 1948. McCarthy hassled proponents of public housing and planned towns. Attacking one federally funded multi-family project for veterans, he claimed the government had paid for “a breeding ground for communists.” NAREB’s Herbert U. Nelson also believed public housing was communistic, whereas public support for private businesses was fine. He argued that “public credit can properly be used to help sustain home ownership and private enterprise,” and he railed against the women housing activists trying to promote affordable housing for workers. McCarthy’s committee also attacked building workers in the AFL’s traditional craft unions as incompetents who produced “slack” work and would impede the postwar housing process.

McCarthy found in developer William Levitt an ally who testified that only federal aid to large private builders, coupled with abolition of zoning codes, building codes and union restrictions, could solve the postwar housing shortage. Levitt and Sons, of Long Island, became the nation’s largest home building firm by 1952, creating its first postwar suburb of over 70,000 inexpensive houses on small lots. Levitt followed FHA restrictions on race, refusing to sell to African Americans, so Levittown became the largest all-white community in the nation. There was never an overall town plan for Levittown, which spanned two existing Long Island towns, Hempstead and Oyster Bay, in Nassau County. Levitt and Sons provided no sewers, relying instead on individual septic tanks, and built residential streets that failed to connect with county and state highways. The project was all about selling houses, not about the basics of sheltering tens of thousands of people according to professional standards of housing or urban design.

By October 1952, Fortune magazine gushed over “The Most House for the Money” and praised “Levitt’s Progress,” publishing his complaints about government interference through too-strict FHA and VA inspections and standards. With a straight face, and despite receiving hundreds of millions of dollars of FHA financing, Levitt said, “Utopia in this business would be to get rid of the government, except in its proper function of an insurance agency.”

Meanwhile, Catherine Bauer and her allies faced the same kind of opposition they had confronted on the earlier housing bill. The 1949 Housing Act did not meet their expectations, and its provisions for demolition began the neighborhood destruction pattern that would later become “urban renewal.” With each succeeding year, fewer units of new public housing construction were authorized.

The Two-Tier Legacy

In Modern Housing in America, historian Gail Radford defines the 1930s and 1940s as the time when Americans developed a “two-tier” policy to subsidize housing. Cramped multi-family housing for the poor would be constructed by public authorities, while more generous single-family housing for white, male-headed families would be constructed by private developers with government support. This policy disadvantaged women and people of color, as well as the elderly and people of low incomes. It also had profound implications for urban design. Inadequate financial resources hampered multi-family housing complexes, while material resources were wasted in single-family housing production without proper urban planning. Worst of all, federal policy mystified many working-class and middle-class Americans, who saw minimal visible subsidies helping the poor but never understood that their own housing was being subsidized in a far more generous way through income-tax deductions that grew with the size of their mortgages.

Despite the greater scope for urban public amenities suggested by New Deal legislation enabling federal involvement in town building and public housing, it was the FHA’s mortgage insurance for private subdivisions that proved to have the greatest long-term effect on American urbanization patterns. As real estate historian Marc A. Weiss has stated: “This new federal agency, run to a large extent both by and for bankers, builders, and brokers, exercised great political power in pressuring local planners and government officials to conform to its requirements.” Between 1934 and 1940, Weiss concludes that “FHA had fully established the land planning and development process and pattern that a decade later captured media attention as ‘postwar suburbanization.'” Barry Checkoway notes that accounts of subdivisions “exploding” often attributed their growth to consumer choice, but in fact consumers had little choice. The well-designed urban multi-family projects Bauer and others had envisioned were not available as alternatives to the large subdivisions of inexpensive houses constructed by the big builders who now controlled the housing market.

The distrust and anger generated by the two-tier housing solution endure today. Public policy has separated affluent and poor, white and black, male-headed households and female-headed households, young families and the elderly. Advocates of affordable housing and urban amenities often see white suburbs and their residents as the enemy, while many affluent white suburban homeowners and successful builders don’t want to deal with city problems. The two-tier solution also dampened idealism in the planning and design professions. Architects lost the chance to build large amounts of affordable multi-family housing with sophisticated designs. Regional planners lost the chance to direct the location and site design of massive postwar construction. Sixty years later, metropolitan regions are still shaped by the outcome of these old debates.

Dolores Hayden is professor of architecture, urbanism and American studies at Yale University. With support from the Lincoln Institute, she is working on a new history of American suburbia, Model Houses for the Millions: Making the American Suburban Landscape, 1820-2000.

Her new working paper, Model Houses for the Millions: Making the American Suburban Landscape, 1820-2000, is currently available from the Lincoln Institute.

References

Catherine Bauer. 1934. Modern Housing. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

Rosalyn Baxandall and Elizabeth Ewen. 2000. Picture Windows: How the Suburbs Happened. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Barry Checkoway. 1986. “Large Builders, Federal Housing Programs, and Postwar Suburbanization,” in Rachel G. Bratt, Chester Hartman, and Ann Meyerson, Critical Perspectives on Housing. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. 119-138.

Keller Easterling. 1999. Organization Space. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Dolores Hayden. 1984. Redesigning the American Dream: The Future of Housing, Work, and Family Life. New York, NY: W.W. Norton.

Kenneth T. Jackson. 1985. Crabgrass Frontier. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Gail Radford. 1996. Modern Housing in America: Policy Struggles in the New Deal Era. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Marc A. Weiss. 1987. The Rise of the Community Builders: The American Real Estate Industry and Urban Land Use Planning. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

June 22, 1998, saw an event that would have been improbable only a short while ago-developers, public officials and environmentalists gathered in Newark’s Ironbound neighborhood to announce the opening of a new $4.5 million state-of-the-art compressed gas packaging facility on an old brownfield site. The facility, owned by Welco Gases Corp., will provide industrial and specialty gases to the welding, medical and research markets in New York and New Jersey. It demonstrates how redevelopment of brownfield sites has been revolutionized, at least in some places.

With legislation passed last January, New Jersey is one of the latest states to enact environmental laws intended to bring companies and investors into the redevelopment arena by offering them new assurances, incentives and assistance. While the site on Newark’s Avenue P may seem an obvious choice for redevelopment-close to rail, air and sea facilities and in the middle of a burgeoning metropolitan region with almost 20 million inhabitants and a half trillion dollar economy-its history of abandonment demonstrates how complicated redevelopment of contaminated sites has become.

The Welco project was one of four sites highlighted during a conference on Land, Capital and Community: Elements of Brownfield and Vacant Land Redevelopment cosponsored by the Lincoln Institute and the Regional Plan Association (RPA) last May. The conference goal, to identify the critical elements to successful brownfield and vacant land redevelopment, was achieved by visiting projects in various stages of redevelopment in Newark and Elizabeth, New Jersey. By examining different strategies for attracting private investment and public involvement, the conference focused attention on the basic components needed for any state or local redevelopment initiative.

In keynote remarks New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman discussed RPA’s Third Regional Plan (1) and how many aspects of its vision are incorporated in the New Jersey State Development and Redevelopment Plan, a central piece of her current legislative agenda. In particular, she mentioned the state’s role in promoting the redevelopment of brownfield and vacant urban sites through planning and expedited permitting.

Governor Whitman cited the City of Long Branch, where a private organization prepared a master plan that was pre-approved by the Department of Environmental Protection (NJ DEP) as meeting the requirements of the Coastal Areas Facility Review Act (CAFRA). This pre-approval (which took three years of negotiation with NJ DEP) ensures that any development project approved by the city automatically receives coastal area regulation approval as well. In an urban community that had seen a decade without a single real estate transaction in its downtown, developer interest in Long Branch has surged due to the promise of streamlined CAFRA applications. While other issues also contributed to the city’s success, such as the active involvement of the private sector and the quality of the master plan devised by Thompson Design Group, this example demonstrates that predictability is a vital component to any urban economic development strategy.

Another perspective was presented by Dr. Tomas Grohé who spoke about the Emscher Park International Building Exhibition, a redevelopment of brownfield and vacant sites in the heavily settled North Rhine/Westfalia region of Germany. The Emscher project is using a regional approach to identify remedies for communities and ecosystems damaged by decades of industrial activity. Through jury selection processes and extensive community involvement, the program is implementing restorative projects including housing, new industrial and commercial business parks, and river and forest restoration. This approach is different in many respects from the United States model of market-driven projects, but it also manages to include public/private partnerships, infrastructure investments, and other familiar components.

Tiers of Redevelopment Potential

For the purposes of the public policy discussions at the conference, brownfield and vacant sites were categorized into three categories:

• tier one: sites that pose some contamination issues, but are economically viable development projects.
• tier two: sites that would be attractive but have higher contamination risks or less marketability, thus requiring some incentives for redevelopment.
• tier three: sites with high environmental risks that do not hold economic potential even if cleaned, due to poor location, lack of access or unclear reuse potential.

Many of the tier one sites in the region are being developed and do not require strategic planning. However, an important policy issue regarding these sites is that since their redevelopment does not require public incentives any available subsidies should be focused on other sites. Furthermore, their remediation and redevelopment should be consistent with the surrounding community’s zoning and planning.

The tier two sites hold the potential to move forward under market conditions, if the right level of incentives-tax abatements, remediation reimbursement, public assistance-can be provided. Making these sites attractive for private investment should be the primary objective of financial incentives, essentially bringing them into the tier one category. Once in that category, remediation and redevelopment plans should again be consistent with the surrounding community’s zoning and planning.

The tier three sites require substantial public investment. To create a regional strategy for brownfield redevelopment, it is not sufficient to focus solely on sites with significant economic return. Tier three sites may, by their location in less-advantaged neighborhoods, their lack of access or other circumstances, justify considerable public or philanthropic involvement. Public policy and the majority of public investment dollars must concentrate on remediation and redevelopment of sites that pose health risks and deter economic development in lower-income communities.

Two panel discussions explored incentives to encourage redevelopment projects. The first focused on incentives that can make tier two sites attractive for private investment, such as tax abatements, infrastructure investments or remediation reimbursement. These techniques are essential to bring private market forces into the brownfield redevelopment arena. Panelists talked about the kinds of regulatory and financial mechanisms required to make marginal sites attractive to private investors who would be willing to remediate and redevelop contaminated or vacant land.

The second panel discussed tier three sites that would require greater public or community involvement. Just because some brownfield or vacant land sites may be risky investments does not mean they should be left out of regional redevelopment strategies. Techniques to focus on these sites include involvement of a community development corporation, a broader regional approach, environmental justice advocacy, and public investment on a federal, state or local level. Panelists shared examples of successful brownfield redevelopment as a community revitalization technique and outlined the actions necessary to spur these transformations.

Incentives and Planning Strategies

Tax Abatements. Tax abatements can be an important technique to help cover the cost of redeveloping a vacant site, but their implementation raises issues of planning and prioritization. New Jersey has a recently amended tax abatement law that creates Environmental Opportunity Zones (EOZs) where developers pay a reduced property tax rate for 10 to 15 years to help them recover the costs of remediation. While no communities are yet implementing the EOZ, participants discussed the particular types of projects that would most benefit from the incentive, and how municipalities should focus the program only to projects that really need such significant advantages.

Tax Increment Financing. Infrastructure may pose significant impediments to redevelopment projects, particularly when an entire neighborhood has been in decline for many years. For example, the Chicago metropolitan area has successfully implemented tax increment financing mechanisms to provide infrastructure for brownfield and vacant land redevelopment sites.

Site Valuation. Many brownfield sites become public property through involuntary tax foreclosure or other processes. To return these sites to productive use, municipalities often try to encourage private investment and economic development. However, real estate appraisers have difficulty quantifying the value of property where the cost of cleanup remains unknown, thus complicating the process of returning land to private hands.

Insurance Policies. Insurance packages can provide broad benefits to encourage the redevelopment of brownfield sites, but they need to become better understood and more widely used. Provided by the private sector, these tools are readily available to sellers, buyers and lenders involved in the redevelopment of brownfields. Participants discussed the new products now available for indemnification and cited examples where these products could reduce the need for public assistance.

Community Participation. In many instances, a community-based organization can play an important role in identifying sites and implementing a community-driven remediation and redevelopment proposal. A case example in Trenton, New Jersey, showed how community advocacy and working with local government helped identify funding and develop innovative techniques to remediate a vacant lot in a residential neighborhood.

Advocacy Planning. Issues of advocacy planning such as environmental justice can change the entire dynamic of a site redevelopment program. In the case of brownfield sites, a community may feel it has been taken advantage of once already, by the polluter, and may approach new proposals with some hesitancy. How can environmental justice advocacy be targeted to promote redevelopment projects that are beneficial to communities? What types of projects can combine the effectiveness of community development corporation models, and yet emulate the scope and ambition of the European example?

Conclusions

Following the panel discussions, participants debated the merits of different approaches to brownfield redevelopment and identified five critical components: sureness of the process; flexibility of public agencies; effective local planning; political leadership and support; and involvement of the entire community.

Some participants felt that many of the case examples did not take advantage of the full range of state or local assistance packages. They suggested that public policy analysis should consider ways to incorporate environmental laws, community development and business interests into an understanding of why brownfield redevelopment leaders do not seem to be more aware of existing programs and incentives.

What is the final or crucial element that pushes a redevelopment project such as the Welco Gases site over apparent obstacles to success? While the participants, representing real estate interests, community organizations and local governments, surely benefited from discussing and learning about the programs and incentives used in various case examples, in the end no one could identify a magic bullet to brownfield redevelopment.

Thomas K. Wright, director of the New Jersey office of the Regional Plan Association, organized the conference described above and heads up RPA’s brownfield redevelopment programs. Ann M. Davlin, RPA program analyst, provided research assistance.

1. In February 1996 Regional Plan Association released A REGION AT RISK, RPA’s Third Regional Plan for the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut Metropolitan Region. The plan, its policy and investment recommendations are based on an in-depth analysis of the rapid changes affecting the region’s economy, environmental systems and social equity: the 3 E’s.

Lincoln Institute Publications on Brownfields and Vacant Land

J. Thomas Black, Model Solutions to Revitalize Urban Industrial Areas, Land Lines, September 1997.

Donald T. Iannone, Redeveloping Urban Brownfields, Land Lines, November 1995.

Barry Wood, Vacant Land in Europe, 1998. Working Paper.

James G. Wright, Risks and Rewards of Brownfield Redevelopment, 1997. Policy Focus Report.

Una versión más actualizada de este artículo está disponible como parte del capítulo 5 del libro Perspectivas urbanas: Temas críticos en políticas de suelo de América Latina.

El Instituto Lincoln está colaborando en Argentina con la ciudad de Córdoba en un proyecto de gran importancia para cambiar las formas de abordar la planificación física de la ciudad, así como los instrumentos que se usan para lograrla. Córdoba representa un caso particularmente interesante por su ubicación estratégica en el centro del área de desarrollo del Mercosur.

La primera fase del proyecto fue un seminario llevado a cabo el pasado abril titulado “Hacia una gestión urbana integrada: Implementación de un plan estratégico para la ciudad de Córdoba”, cuyo objetivo principal fue congregar a los “actores” principales en Córdoba para analizar y debatir las metas de planificación y los instrumentos en el contexto de desarrollos nuevos en la gestión urbana.

El seminario contó con las ponencias de expertos internacionales y discusiones entre funcionarios municipales, promotores inmobiliarios, intereses comerciales y de negocios, organizaciones no gubernamentales y profesionales del urbanismo. El papel del Instituto Lincoln fue de gran importancia ya que facilitó un foro para que los participantes locales se reunieran por primera vez para hablar de dificultades urbanísticas y problemas de desarrollo, y para dar inicio al proceso de establecer políticas de administración y procedimientos nuevos.

De las discusiones surgieron tres temas principales. El primero, tuvo que ver con decidir el orden de prioridad de la tierra a ser urbanizada, con un interés particular en el acceso equitativo a la tierra, infraestructura y vivienda para los sectores populares, así como mecanismos apropiados para llevar a cabo una planificación urbana integrada a nivel regional. El segundo tema, estuvo enfocado en el impacto ambiental y fiscal de los grandes establecimientos comerciales en estructuras urbanas existentes, distritos históricos y barrios residenciales. El tercer tema se concentró en varios actores y sectores involucrados en el desarrollo industrial de Córdoba, prestando atención a la distribución de la industria, las limitaciones de infraestructura y los costos sociales y ambientales.

Además de dar a los participantes cordobeses una perspectiva amplia sobre problemas de gestión urbana en otras ciudades, el seminario generó dos puntos de importancia: 1) que la planificación para el desarrollo no sólo se trata de regulación o de control del uso de la tierra, sino que las políticas tributarias y fiscales afectan con igual importancia los valores de la tierra; y 2) que los funcionarios locales deben aprender a evaluar los costos y beneficios de los proyectos urbanísticos para poder tener relaciones comerciales efectivas con promotores inmobiliarios del sector privado.

El seminario ya ha tenido impactos específicos en actividades comerciales de trabajo conjunto en el centro histórico y en programas de gestión mejorados para proporcionar una infraestructura y servicios nuevos al mismo tiempo que se reducen los déficits. Además, el programa animó a los participantes a reconocer la importancia de la planificación estratégica a largo plazo para trazar las indicaciones generales sobre cambios de política y para comprender los efectos de tipos particulares de desarrollo en el medio físico y social.

El Instituto Lincoln continúa trabajando con funcionarios municipales para ayudar a desarrollar nuevos paradigmas de gestión que puedan sostener alianzas público-privadas, así como mejores técnicas de análisis y planificación. Los programas de seguimiento ayudarán a gestores de políticas y promotores inmobiliarios privados (que operan tanto en mercados formales como informales) a comprender mejor el funcionamiento de los mercados de tierra urbanos y las consecuencias de cambios de políticas para el desarrollo urbano.

El próximo curso sobre “Comportamiento del mercado inmobiliario en Cordoba: Implicaciones para la estructura urbana” explorará investigaciones sobre los mercados formales en Córdoba, haciendo énfasis en los efectos de las políticas económicas y las intervenciones del gobierno. A este curso lo seguirá un seminario regional donde la experiencia se compartirá con los participantes de por lo menos otros tres países. Simultáneamente, el Instituto Lincoln está desarrollando junto con funcionarios de la ciudad de Córdoba un programa de entrenamiento dirigido a un amplio espectro de funcionarios locales, regionales y promotores inmobiliarios, que se concentra en la administración general, la planificación urbana y la preparación e implementación de proyectos.

Douglas Keare es docente visitante del Instituto Lincoln. Tiene una amplia experiencia en planificación estratégica para ciudades grandes en países en desarrollo a través de investigaciones previas y dirección de proyectos en el Banco Mundial y el Instituto para el Desarrollo Internacional de la Universidad de Harvard. Ricardo Vanella es director del Departamento Desarrollo Económico de la ciudad de Córdoba.