Land rent and sustainable cities
Humanity is urbanizing rapidly. By now every second world citizen lives in a city. Scenarios suggest that by the middle of this century, almost 70 per cent of the global population will live in cities. At the same time, cities constitute both sources but also potential solutions to climate change and other sustainability challenges. While diverse disciplines address some aspects of urbanization, there is a need to integrate these knowledge in order to find optimal – or at least appropriate - pathways that could minimise the negative impacts as well as maximise the positive outcomes of the urbanisation process.
The ever-present ideas of the AMM model are highly influential in urban science, and thus, in sustainable urban development. A clear interpretation and quantification of the links between the variables included in this model may provide new insights regardless of scale or context. Moreover, understanding the general dynamics of land rent is a key issue to develop accurate land and infrastructure policies, identified as the basis for sustainable urbanism.
The research presented in this proposal aims to identify the potential of land management in climate change mitigation and in other specific sustainability goals at the city level. Two mechanisms are analysed to achieve these outcomes. The first one considers land taxation as a steering mechanism that accounts for externalities arising from urban development. The second one links land taxation with public infrastructure expenditures, using the so-called Land Value Capture (LVC) systems.
Empirical research will be conducted on hypotheses about determinants of these two instruments in order to identify the shaping relations. Having this information at hand, the following step is to optimize them and come up with concrete policy advice on land use and taxation policies. An underlying objective is to strengthening synergies and co-benefits between these policies and the financing of sustainable infrastructures.