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Urban land and property markets in the UK
Report~Book reviews
the security of the tenure and expectations from the landholding. They have the option to borrow either from the commercial banks, the B A A C or the cooperatives. As credit gains importance for agriculture through structural changes leading to more modern input use, proper access to formal credit through negotiable rights on land will become more critical in the coming years. Moreover, when planning land use for agricultural d e v e l o p m e n t , adequate attention must be given to the need for proper land rights and a suitable agricultural credit delivery system.
Jayant Kumar Routray and Maheswar Sahoo Human Settlements Development Program Asian Institute of Technology Bangkok, Thailand 1Acquaye, Ben, and Crocombe, Ron (eds) Land Tenure and Rural Productivity in the Pacific Islands FAO, Rome (1984) 2Feder, Gershon 'Land ownership security and farm productivity: evidence from Thailand' Journal of Development Studies 1987 24 (1) 16-30 3Defence villages were especially established in late 1970s in the border areas close to Laos, Myanmar, Malaysia and Cambodia to protect against the propaga-
Book reviews Land and property,: Is Britain unique? URBAN LAND AND PROPERTY MARKETS IN THE UK
by Richard H Williams and Barry Wood
UCL Press, London, 1994, 275 pp Comparative studies are fascinating but tedious, compelling but cumbersome, rewarding but ambiguous. The difficulties deter all but the most assiduous researchers, and until recently there have been few of these. The growth of interest in the lack of commonalities among the countries of the ever-expanding Common Market, however, has significantly changed matters. There is now a greatly inc r e a s e d i n t e r e s t in t h e v a r y i n g approaches of different countries on a huge range of matters, particularly in the public policy domain. Everything from pensions to transport systems, and from vocational training to cultural programmes, is now being subjected to the comparative method. The stimulus is not simple academic curiosity: it is a widespread desire to establish how public policies can be improved by learning from the experi-
Land Use Policy 1995 Volume 12 Number 1
ence of different countries. This in turn is motivated (at least in certain quarters) by a search for the 'best' which can then provide a model for the European Union. It is against this background that a r e m a r k a b l e e n d e a v o u r has b e e n undertaken to analyse 'in great detail the way in which urban land and property markets operate in European countries'. Commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Regional Planning, Building and Town Planning, this covers (in addition to Germany) five countries: France, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK. The study is directed by Hartmut Dietrich of the University of Dortmund. A series of reports is being edited by Richard H Williams and Barry Wood of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. These two editors are the main authors of the volume under review, which deals solely with the UK.
Framework To understand the implications of a property and land use planning system and the 'lessons' that might be learned
tion of Communism. 4Forest villages are located within the resewed forests as a result of the illegal occupation of land. SVillages within the agricultural land reform areas are known as land reform villages. 6Ruland, Jurgen Another Asian Miracle Economyin the Making? Thailand's Prospect for Becoming a NIC in the Nineties, Aktuelle Information-Papiere Zu Entwicklung und P o l i t i k No 14, A r n o l d Bergstrasser-lnstitut, Freiberg, Germany (1989) 7Sahoo, Maheswar The Role of Land Titles in the Availability of Formal Credit for Agricultural Development: A Case Study of Lahansai and Pakham Districts, Northeast Thailand SPRING Research Study, HSD Program, AIT, Bangkok (1993)
from its operation involves an appreciation of the legal and cultural framework within which the system has evolved and an understanding of how it works in practice. This necessitates a comprehensive mastery of a great mass of information. A summary is worse than useless since it will be misleading. It is in the detail that the true nature of the system is revealed. Williams and Wood have appreciated this and have not been deterred from tackling it in the only way which is satisfactorily possible - by recounting at length the details of the constitutional, legal, economic and social framework; the nature of the land and property markets and their operation; the character of British planning, and its subservience to public policy decisions rather than a legal c o d e . . , and so forth. As a result this descriptive material takes up three quarters of the book. For the British reader this is so familiar that, despite its quality, it will be only skimmed (not so the foreign reader, of course!). Another 20 pages are taken up by short case studies which illustrate the ways in which the UK property and land market systems work. This is meatier fare; but it is the subsequent conclusions which are of particular interest and importance to the British reader. Regrettably, only 11 pages are devoted to this. (The remainder of the volume is really another book, and it is in German; this 'unique feature' is designed to 'enhance the value of the book to German readers'!) 89
Book reviews
Condemnation But the 11 pages constitute a striking characterization of the British system: some would say a stunning condemnation of its inadequacies, though the authors adopt a remarkably even tone, given the nature of their conclusions. The 'unique' British development process is shown to be (the words are mine, not the authors'): incredibly flexible, inimical to largescale development, costly to the public purse, inequitable, inefficient and problem-creating (particularly in the inner urban areas). The fault lies, however, less with the framework than with the way in which markets are dominant and public action restrained. What the architects of the 1947 Act saw as 'positive planning' is largely absent. This is an extremely important analysis, on which more light will no doubt be thrown by the findings of the other five volumes - which I look forward to reading. I sincerely hope that Williams and Wood will now proceed to recast their findings in a mould suitable for domestic consumption. There also must be a final volume
drawing together the analyses of the complete set of studies. There is no suggestion in the editorial introductions that this will be forthcoming. Indeed, it is explicitly stated that it is for each country to determine the appropriate criteria and 'to judge the performance and the outcome of their land and property markets, including considerations of social equity and ecological aspects'. Appropriate criteria are no doubt as culturally determined as the land and property markets themselves; and a comparative study with this particular provenance could not be expected to come up with a 'best buy'. But, judging by the conclusions of this volume, there is a great deal more that awaits to be done in c o m p a r i n g the six national systems and determining how some of the features of these could be adapted with benefit in the UK. In their brief conclusions Williams and Wood have provided a challenging and exciting starting point.
policies and procedures which often differ little from nation to nation. Thus the development of French planning, and of the French urban land market as a whole, need to be seen in the context of that nation's relatively late urbanization, of the large amounts of development space available and of an evolving administrative and legal structure that is very different from that in the UK. Despite its importance to understanding what comes later, this first section of the book does nonetheless contain several tantalizing remarks which suggest that the situation therein described is poised on the brink of major change. Although this is an easy criticism to make - and indeed any work that seeks to describe a policy sector at any given moment is subject to the same limitation - French planning and the legal and administrative context in which it operates are currently the subject of considerable and fundamental review. Political decentralization has both exposed and created a n u m b e r of weaknesses in Barry Cullingworth Department of Land Economy French local land policy which new University of Cambridge, UK statutes and a wide-ranging national d e b a t e are c u r r e n t l y s e e k i n g to address. Regrettably, these are only hinted at here: the Joxe-Marchand Law, the 1991 Urban Development Law, the difficult relationship between private and public rights exemplified in the inherent contradictions between the often archaic Codes and development processes in a compara- the realities of late 20th century Eurotive context. Reading the text, I have pean planning imperatives. the distinct impression that a third and The second and third parts of the perhaps unintended function has been book deal with the operation and conto enable the authors to look at trol of the urban land market and the French planning in a slightly different property market respectively. Both way, for this book, written explicitly are encyclopaedic and cover often for an English-language audience, is complex subjects in a clear, if in some notably different to existing French cases oversimplified, manner. A sectexts in the same field. tion on data sources is particularly As a presentation of French land welcome, as are the comparative land development processes, the book is and p r o p e r t y prices p r e s e n t e d in certainly the most comprehensive on Chapter 5. The use of case studies and the market today. By beginning with a continual references to national policy contextual section, the authors place directions and intentions enable these French land development processes sections to rise above the simple within the social, political and demo- enumeration of market mechanisms graphic background of France and, in and planning procedures to present a doing so, avoid the common weakness detailed account of the land developof works on foreign experiences in this ment process. area, that of simply describing a set of If anything, the book, and particu-
New light on the French experience URBAN LANDANDPROPERTY MARKETSINFRANCE by Rodrigo Acosta and Vincent Renard
UCL Press, London, 1993, 166 pp, £40.00 This excellent book, written by two well-known French experts in land policy and planning, presents, in a highly structured and clear way, the operation of the land and property markets in France and the planning system that accompanies them. In doing so it serves two basic functions. First, it allows us to learn how the land development process operates in that nation and, second, it permits UK readers to place their country's land
90
Land Use Policy 1995 Volume 12 Number 1
the security of the tenure and expectations from the landholding. They have the option to borrow either from the commercial banks, the B A A C or the cooperatives. As credit gains importance for agriculture through structural changes leading to more modern input use, proper access to formal credit through negotiable rights on land will become more critical in the coming years. Moreover, when planning land use for agricultural d e v e l o p m e n t , adequate attention must be given to the need for proper land rights and a suitable agricultural credit delivery system.
Jayant Kumar Routray and Maheswar Sahoo Human Settlements Development Program Asian Institute of Technology Bangkok, Thailand 1Acquaye, Ben, and Crocombe, Ron (eds) Land Tenure and Rural Productivity in the Pacific Islands FAO, Rome (1984) 2Feder, Gershon 'Land ownership security and farm productivity: evidence from Thailand' Journal of Development Studies 1987 24 (1) 16-30 3Defence villages were especially established in late 1970s in the border areas close to Laos, Myanmar, Malaysia and Cambodia to protect against the propaga-
Book reviews Land and property,: Is Britain unique? URBAN LAND AND PROPERTY MARKETS IN THE UK
by Richard H Williams and Barry Wood
UCL Press, London, 1994, 275 pp Comparative studies are fascinating but tedious, compelling but cumbersome, rewarding but ambiguous. The difficulties deter all but the most assiduous researchers, and until recently there have been few of these. The growth of interest in the lack of commonalities among the countries of the ever-expanding Common Market, however, has significantly changed matters. There is now a greatly inc r e a s e d i n t e r e s t in t h e v a r y i n g approaches of different countries on a huge range of matters, particularly in the public policy domain. Everything from pensions to transport systems, and from vocational training to cultural programmes, is now being subjected to the comparative method. The stimulus is not simple academic curiosity: it is a widespread desire to establish how public policies can be improved by learning from the experi-
Land Use Policy 1995 Volume 12 Number 1
ence of different countries. This in turn is motivated (at least in certain quarters) by a search for the 'best' which can then provide a model for the European Union. It is against this background that a r e m a r k a b l e e n d e a v o u r has b e e n undertaken to analyse 'in great detail the way in which urban land and property markets operate in European countries'. Commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Regional Planning, Building and Town Planning, this covers (in addition to Germany) five countries: France, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK. The study is directed by Hartmut Dietrich of the University of Dortmund. A series of reports is being edited by Richard H Williams and Barry Wood of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. These two editors are the main authors of the volume under review, which deals solely with the UK.
Framework To understand the implications of a property and land use planning system and the 'lessons' that might be learned
tion of Communism. 4Forest villages are located within the resewed forests as a result of the illegal occupation of land. SVillages within the agricultural land reform areas are known as land reform villages. 6Ruland, Jurgen Another Asian Miracle Economyin the Making? Thailand's Prospect for Becoming a NIC in the Nineties, Aktuelle Information-Papiere Zu Entwicklung und P o l i t i k No 14, A r n o l d Bergstrasser-lnstitut, Freiberg, Germany (1989) 7Sahoo, Maheswar The Role of Land Titles in the Availability of Formal Credit for Agricultural Development: A Case Study of Lahansai and Pakham Districts, Northeast Thailand SPRING Research Study, HSD Program, AIT, Bangkok (1993)
from its operation involves an appreciation of the legal and cultural framework within which the system has evolved and an understanding of how it works in practice. This necessitates a comprehensive mastery of a great mass of information. A summary is worse than useless since it will be misleading. It is in the detail that the true nature of the system is revealed. Williams and Wood have appreciated this and have not been deterred from tackling it in the only way which is satisfactorily possible - by recounting at length the details of the constitutional, legal, economic and social framework; the nature of the land and property markets and their operation; the character of British planning, and its subservience to public policy decisions rather than a legal c o d e . . , and so forth. As a result this descriptive material takes up three quarters of the book. For the British reader this is so familiar that, despite its quality, it will be only skimmed (not so the foreign reader, of course!). Another 20 pages are taken up by short case studies which illustrate the ways in which the UK property and land market systems work. This is meatier fare; but it is the subsequent conclusions which are of particular interest and importance to the British reader. Regrettably, only 11 pages are devoted to this. (The remainder of the volume is really another book, and it is in German; this 'unique feature' is designed to 'enhance the value of the book to German readers'!) 89
Book reviews
Condemnation But the 11 pages constitute a striking characterization of the British system: some would say a stunning condemnation of its inadequacies, though the authors adopt a remarkably even tone, given the nature of their conclusions. The 'unique' British development process is shown to be (the words are mine, not the authors'): incredibly flexible, inimical to largescale development, costly to the public purse, inequitable, inefficient and problem-creating (particularly in the inner urban areas). The fault lies, however, less with the framework than with the way in which markets are dominant and public action restrained. What the architects of the 1947 Act saw as 'positive planning' is largely absent. This is an extremely important analysis, on which more light will no doubt be thrown by the findings of the other five volumes - which I look forward to reading. I sincerely hope that Williams and Wood will now proceed to recast their findings in a mould suitable for domestic consumption. There also must be a final volume
drawing together the analyses of the complete set of studies. There is no suggestion in the editorial introductions that this will be forthcoming. Indeed, it is explicitly stated that it is for each country to determine the appropriate criteria and 'to judge the performance and the outcome of their land and property markets, including considerations of social equity and ecological aspects'. Appropriate criteria are no doubt as culturally determined as the land and property markets themselves; and a comparative study with this particular provenance could not be expected to come up with a 'best buy'. But, judging by the conclusions of this volume, there is a great deal more that awaits to be done in c o m p a r i n g the six national systems and determining how some of the features of these could be adapted with benefit in the UK. In their brief conclusions Williams and Wood have provided a challenging and exciting starting point.
policies and procedures which often differ little from nation to nation. Thus the development of French planning, and of the French urban land market as a whole, need to be seen in the context of that nation's relatively late urbanization, of the large amounts of development space available and of an evolving administrative and legal structure that is very different from that in the UK. Despite its importance to understanding what comes later, this first section of the book does nonetheless contain several tantalizing remarks which suggest that the situation therein described is poised on the brink of major change. Although this is an easy criticism to make - and indeed any work that seeks to describe a policy sector at any given moment is subject to the same limitation - French planning and the legal and administrative context in which it operates are currently the subject of considerable and fundamental review. Political decentralization has both exposed and created a n u m b e r of weaknesses in Barry Cullingworth Department of Land Economy French local land policy which new University of Cambridge, UK statutes and a wide-ranging national d e b a t e are c u r r e n t l y s e e k i n g to address. Regrettably, these are only hinted at here: the Joxe-Marchand Law, the 1991 Urban Development Law, the difficult relationship between private and public rights exemplified in the inherent contradictions between the often archaic Codes and development processes in a compara- the realities of late 20th century Eurotive context. Reading the text, I have pean planning imperatives. the distinct impression that a third and The second and third parts of the perhaps unintended function has been book deal with the operation and conto enable the authors to look at trol of the urban land market and the French planning in a slightly different property market respectively. Both way, for this book, written explicitly are encyclopaedic and cover often for an English-language audience, is complex subjects in a clear, if in some notably different to existing French cases oversimplified, manner. A sectexts in the same field. tion on data sources is particularly As a presentation of French land welcome, as are the comparative land development processes, the book is and p r o p e r t y prices p r e s e n t e d in certainly the most comprehensive on Chapter 5. The use of case studies and the market today. By beginning with a continual references to national policy contextual section, the authors place directions and intentions enable these French land development processes sections to rise above the simple within the social, political and demo- enumeration of market mechanisms graphic background of France and, in and planning procedures to present a doing so, avoid the common weakness detailed account of the land developof works on foreign experiences in this ment process. area, that of simply describing a set of If anything, the book, and particu-
New light on the French experience URBAN LANDANDPROPERTY MARKETSINFRANCE by Rodrigo Acosta and Vincent Renard
UCL Press, London, 1993, 166 pp, £40.00 This excellent book, written by two well-known French experts in land policy and planning, presents, in a highly structured and clear way, the operation of the land and property markets in France and the planning system that accompanies them. In doing so it serves two basic functions. First, it allows us to learn how the land development process operates in that nation and, second, it permits UK readers to place their country's land
90
Land Use Policy 1995 Volume 12 Number 1