- Email: [email protected]
Liberating the land: the case for private land-use planning
Book reviews / Land Use Policy 19 (2002) 333–337
with interests in the challenges of the planning and management of rural areas. Certainly the availability of this collection of papers in a convenient and (reasonably) compact form is an asset: it is good to have, within one set of covers, examples of the work of many leading researchers. The volume is unlikely to lead to a transformation of rural planning and management, but it will certainly offer a secure foundation for those
335
seeking to practise—as researchers, planners or managers—in the field. Alexander Mather Department of Geography and Environment, University of Aberdeen, Elphinstone Road, Aberdeen AB24 3UF, UK E-mail address: [email protected]
PII: S 0 2 6 4 - 8 3 7 7 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 0 4 4 - 3
Liberating the land: the case for private land-use planning Mark Pennington, IEA, London, 2002, 114pp., price d10.00 The recent deregulatory changes to the UK planning system, proposed by the Labour Government, the bulk of which have been intended to speed up the process of decision making and so encourage profitable private investment, are said to have been the most radical since 1947. Nevertheless, these notwithstanding, the very cornerstone upon which the system has always been based, that is the state ownership of development rights, remains firmly in place. Whilst an individual has the right to own land, the right to develop it or change its use is vested in the state, with most decisions being taken at local level by elected councillors whose function it is to act in the ‘public interest’. According to Mark Pennington, this absence of free market processes inevitably renders the system of landuse control in the UK (and in the USA) highly deficient in that it is simply incapable of delivering the appropriate type of development in the appropriate place at the appropriate time. Having identified the symptoms of the problem, such as housing shortages, he sets out in this short pamphlet to make the case for a free market, property rights approach to land-use control based largely upon the ideas articulated by Coase and Tiebout. Pennington begins by restating the reasons commonly asserted to justify Government intervention in land-use control. Amongst these is the supposedly persistent belief that land issues are simply too important to be left to the vagaries of the free market—without some form of state intervention what guarantee could be given against the prospect of ugly retail sheds sprawling across cherished, pristine open countryside? For Pennington, such thinking is indicative of a fundamental lack of understanding of market processes. Having set out the opponents’ case for state intervention, Pennington goes on to outline what he considers to be the three most pervasive theories of planning: rational-comprehensive; disjointed-incremen-
talist; and collaborative. Whilst he acknowledges that the most extreme form of state control exercised through rational comprehensive planning, predicated as it is upon the decisions of technocratic ‘experts’, has long since passed, he is no more impressed by the moves towards the paradigm of collaborative practice which so dominates current thinking. As he states, because there is no facility to financially compensate those that are most likely to be disadvantaged by new development proposals, it is almost inevitable that these individuals will dominate planning proceedings in an effort to bring pressure to bear upon councillors to veto unwanted schemes. Moreover, local authority planners are likely to align themselves with dissident groups since, in effect, their attempts to resolve such conflicts provide them with the rationale for their continued employment. So just as many other areas of the welfare state have been exploited most by those needing them least, planning, according to Pennington, has been usurped by the professional classes to ensure the continued protection of suburban leafy enclaves and cushy jobs town hall jobs. Welfare economists share many of Pennington’s misgivings over the operation of the land-use planning system and have advocated the injection of market realism through the use of tradable emission permits. Pennington dismisses their potential in land-use planning, however (through, for example, the use of tradable quotas between brownfield and greenfield sites), because the decision over just how many sites should be brought forward is still made by the state and not the market. Thus it is the pure market, rather than some welfarebased version, that Pennington sees as providing the solution to the UK’s land-use problems. As he points out, free market operation does not mean uncontrolled land use. Developments on one piece of land inevitably impose costs, in terms of reduced amenity, on neighbouring sites. But with the opportunity to offer monetary compensation, as advocated by Coase, developers can in effect purchase consent in a way that is far
336
Book reviews / Land Use Policy 19 (2002) 333–337
more efficient than with the current ‘equivalent’ of what is commonly known as planning gain. Whilst this approach might lend itself to small-scale developments where affected parties can be easily identified, Pennington recognises the potential difficulties that would present themselves in the context of large infrastructure-type projects that might impact over large geographical areas. As a solution, he proposes that local authorities be abolished and replaced by ‘proprietary communities’ as advocated by Tiebout. Decisions on whether to approve developments such as new roads would be made by management boards appointed by the resident ‘shareholders’, with compensation being paid to the residents according to their land share. As with many free market polemics, the reader can be easily seduced by both the analysis of the problems associated with the current state-based planning system and the possible solutions. Certainly I would agree with Pennington’s assertion concerning the disproportionate level of influence exercised by self-selecting, self-righteous, unrepresentative third party pressure groups. But there are a number of serious criticisms that can be levelled against the author. First, although Pennington asserts that local authorities frequently ignore the realities of the market and refuse unwanted developments, he fails to mention the role of the appeal system through which decisions can be reversed. True, he would no doubt state that planning inspectors are no better placed to factor in considerations about market conditions than are politicians, but nevertheless it is false to imply that local councillors are the sole determinants of development proposals. Second, Pennington provides very little detail over just how parties would agree on compensation claims. One assumes that real estate agents would perform an important valuation role, but some of the well-known criticisms that have been levelled at Coase’s ideas, such as threat-making and the absence of perfect markets, are ignored in the text. Moreover, it is highly questionable
as to whether any calculation of compensation would have any proper regard for future generations, a cornerstone of the sustainable development agenda. In contrast, despite the author’s claims to the contrary, it is the planning system rather than the market that provides a more satisfactory process for evaluating the needs of the present against those of the future. Finally, as even Harry Richardson, the author of the Foreword, recognises, Pennington’s favourable disposition to the home rule ideas advanced by Tiebout might be somewhat naive. In essence, Tiebout argues that if local authorities were entirely dependent upon locally raised revenues and were granted total fiscal independence, people (consumers) would select where they live according to which ‘proprietary community’ best matched their tax/service provision requirements. Such a process would, it is claimed, result in a mosaic of different communities offering different bundles of public goods in accordance with the broad profile of consumer choice. But there is little evidence, at least from the USA where local ‘home rule’ powers are extensively invoked, that the extension of consumer ‘choice’ has provided the means for the poorest sections of society to migrate from the inner cities to the largely white, middle class suburbs. Indeed, the practice of home rule appears rather to have reinforced the divides within US society. These criticisms notwithstanding, Pennington’s book deserves to be read widely by planning and geography students alike. As is usually the case for IEA texts it is both extremely concise (and in this case beautifully written) and intellectually challenging, daring to say what many do not want to hear. William Walton Department of Geography and Environment, University of Aberdeen, Elphinstone Road, AB24 3UF Aberdeen, UK E-mail address: [email protected]
PII: S 0 2 6 4 - 8 3 7 7 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 0 4 1 - 8
Peatlands and environmental change D. Charman; Wiley, Chichester, 2002, pp. 301, price d24.95 paperback, ISBN 0 471 96990 7, price d60.00 hardback, ISBN 0 470 84410 8 Peatlands have often been regarded in a negative light by human societies, and such a view probably predates the trackways built by the Neolithic inhabitants of the Somerset Levels to ease their passage across the mires that surrounded their settlements. Later, as forests
dwindled and human populations grew, peatlands came to be exploited as a source of fuel as well as for their potential for conversion to agricultural land and forestry. In the 1970s, the exploitation of peatlands began to be reversed in the interests of conservation. Since then, our knowledge and appreciation of peatlands has grown considerably and this is demonstrated by the successful outcomes of the peatland restoration projects that are now commonplace throughout Europe and North America.
with interests in the challenges of the planning and management of rural areas. Certainly the availability of this collection of papers in a convenient and (reasonably) compact form is an asset: it is good to have, within one set of covers, examples of the work of many leading researchers. The volume is unlikely to lead to a transformation of rural planning and management, but it will certainly offer a secure foundation for those
335
seeking to practise—as researchers, planners or managers—in the field. Alexander Mather Department of Geography and Environment, University of Aberdeen, Elphinstone Road, Aberdeen AB24 3UF, UK E-mail address: [email protected]
PII: S 0 2 6 4 - 8 3 7 7 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 0 4 4 - 3
Liberating the land: the case for private land-use planning Mark Pennington, IEA, London, 2002, 114pp., price d10.00 The recent deregulatory changes to the UK planning system, proposed by the Labour Government, the bulk of which have been intended to speed up the process of decision making and so encourage profitable private investment, are said to have been the most radical since 1947. Nevertheless, these notwithstanding, the very cornerstone upon which the system has always been based, that is the state ownership of development rights, remains firmly in place. Whilst an individual has the right to own land, the right to develop it or change its use is vested in the state, with most decisions being taken at local level by elected councillors whose function it is to act in the ‘public interest’. According to Mark Pennington, this absence of free market processes inevitably renders the system of landuse control in the UK (and in the USA) highly deficient in that it is simply incapable of delivering the appropriate type of development in the appropriate place at the appropriate time. Having identified the symptoms of the problem, such as housing shortages, he sets out in this short pamphlet to make the case for a free market, property rights approach to land-use control based largely upon the ideas articulated by Coase and Tiebout. Pennington begins by restating the reasons commonly asserted to justify Government intervention in land-use control. Amongst these is the supposedly persistent belief that land issues are simply too important to be left to the vagaries of the free market—without some form of state intervention what guarantee could be given against the prospect of ugly retail sheds sprawling across cherished, pristine open countryside? For Pennington, such thinking is indicative of a fundamental lack of understanding of market processes. Having set out the opponents’ case for state intervention, Pennington goes on to outline what he considers to be the three most pervasive theories of planning: rational-comprehensive; disjointed-incremen-
talist; and collaborative. Whilst he acknowledges that the most extreme form of state control exercised through rational comprehensive planning, predicated as it is upon the decisions of technocratic ‘experts’, has long since passed, he is no more impressed by the moves towards the paradigm of collaborative practice which so dominates current thinking. As he states, because there is no facility to financially compensate those that are most likely to be disadvantaged by new development proposals, it is almost inevitable that these individuals will dominate planning proceedings in an effort to bring pressure to bear upon councillors to veto unwanted schemes. Moreover, local authority planners are likely to align themselves with dissident groups since, in effect, their attempts to resolve such conflicts provide them with the rationale for their continued employment. So just as many other areas of the welfare state have been exploited most by those needing them least, planning, according to Pennington, has been usurped by the professional classes to ensure the continued protection of suburban leafy enclaves and cushy jobs town hall jobs. Welfare economists share many of Pennington’s misgivings over the operation of the land-use planning system and have advocated the injection of market realism through the use of tradable emission permits. Pennington dismisses their potential in land-use planning, however (through, for example, the use of tradable quotas between brownfield and greenfield sites), because the decision over just how many sites should be brought forward is still made by the state and not the market. Thus it is the pure market, rather than some welfarebased version, that Pennington sees as providing the solution to the UK’s land-use problems. As he points out, free market operation does not mean uncontrolled land use. Developments on one piece of land inevitably impose costs, in terms of reduced amenity, on neighbouring sites. But with the opportunity to offer monetary compensation, as advocated by Coase, developers can in effect purchase consent in a way that is far
336
Book reviews / Land Use Policy 19 (2002) 333–337
more efficient than with the current ‘equivalent’ of what is commonly known as planning gain. Whilst this approach might lend itself to small-scale developments where affected parties can be easily identified, Pennington recognises the potential difficulties that would present themselves in the context of large infrastructure-type projects that might impact over large geographical areas. As a solution, he proposes that local authorities be abolished and replaced by ‘proprietary communities’ as advocated by Tiebout. Decisions on whether to approve developments such as new roads would be made by management boards appointed by the resident ‘shareholders’, with compensation being paid to the residents according to their land share. As with many free market polemics, the reader can be easily seduced by both the analysis of the problems associated with the current state-based planning system and the possible solutions. Certainly I would agree with Pennington’s assertion concerning the disproportionate level of influence exercised by self-selecting, self-righteous, unrepresentative third party pressure groups. But there are a number of serious criticisms that can be levelled against the author. First, although Pennington asserts that local authorities frequently ignore the realities of the market and refuse unwanted developments, he fails to mention the role of the appeal system through which decisions can be reversed. True, he would no doubt state that planning inspectors are no better placed to factor in considerations about market conditions than are politicians, but nevertheless it is false to imply that local councillors are the sole determinants of development proposals. Second, Pennington provides very little detail over just how parties would agree on compensation claims. One assumes that real estate agents would perform an important valuation role, but some of the well-known criticisms that have been levelled at Coase’s ideas, such as threat-making and the absence of perfect markets, are ignored in the text. Moreover, it is highly questionable
as to whether any calculation of compensation would have any proper regard for future generations, a cornerstone of the sustainable development agenda. In contrast, despite the author’s claims to the contrary, it is the planning system rather than the market that provides a more satisfactory process for evaluating the needs of the present against those of the future. Finally, as even Harry Richardson, the author of the Foreword, recognises, Pennington’s favourable disposition to the home rule ideas advanced by Tiebout might be somewhat naive. In essence, Tiebout argues that if local authorities were entirely dependent upon locally raised revenues and were granted total fiscal independence, people (consumers) would select where they live according to which ‘proprietary community’ best matched their tax/service provision requirements. Such a process would, it is claimed, result in a mosaic of different communities offering different bundles of public goods in accordance with the broad profile of consumer choice. But there is little evidence, at least from the USA where local ‘home rule’ powers are extensively invoked, that the extension of consumer ‘choice’ has provided the means for the poorest sections of society to migrate from the inner cities to the largely white, middle class suburbs. Indeed, the practice of home rule appears rather to have reinforced the divides within US society. These criticisms notwithstanding, Pennington’s book deserves to be read widely by planning and geography students alike. As is usually the case for IEA texts it is both extremely concise (and in this case beautifully written) and intellectually challenging, daring to say what many do not want to hear. William Walton Department of Geography and Environment, University of Aberdeen, Elphinstone Road, AB24 3UF Aberdeen, UK E-mail address: [email protected]
PII: S 0 2 6 4 - 8 3 7 7 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 0 4 1 - 8
Peatlands and environmental change D. Charman; Wiley, Chichester, 2002, pp. 301, price d24.95 paperback, ISBN 0 471 96990 7, price d60.00 hardback, ISBN 0 470 84410 8 Peatlands have often been regarded in a negative light by human societies, and such a view probably predates the trackways built by the Neolithic inhabitants of the Somerset Levels to ease their passage across the mires that surrounded their settlements. Later, as forests
dwindled and human populations grew, peatlands came to be exploited as a source of fuel as well as for their potential for conversion to agricultural land and forestry. In the 1970s, the exploitation of peatlands began to be reversed in the interests of conservation. Since then, our knowledge and appreciation of peatlands has grown considerably and this is demonstrated by the successful outcomes of the peatland restoration projects that are now commonplace throughout Europe and North America.