Planning and the Value of Land

Over the past 60 years or more, planning practice and scholarship has focused overwhelmingly on cities and urbanisation. As we live in the so-called “urban age” (Brenner & Schmid, 2014), this urban emphasis is understandable as more of us live in urban rather than rural places, and cities are viewed as critical motors in the global economy – places of innovation, a critical mass of hard and soft infrastructure, and home to diverse talent. In this context, the spatial imaginaries of planning are focused on urban space and place, while planning practice has moved beyond a narrow land-use regulatory role to embrace place-making, spatial coordination, or development delivery. However, despite planning practice’s “urban accent,” the basic question of how we use land, including land beyond the city, should be of core concern. How we use, own and manage our land is fundamental to how we live. As noted in the OECD’s (2017) comparative study of land-use governance: