Land Policy and Urban Housing

Contents: Preface. 1. Criteria for evaluating land policies. 2. Land use planning controls. 3. Taxation on land. 4. Patterns of land acquisition policy. 5. Land acquisition in Sweden and the experience of stockholm. 6. Advance land acquisition policy in the Netherlands: The Amsterdam experience. 7. Urban land policy in France. 8. Land policies in a market economy. 9. Land policies for the future. 10. Towards a new concept of land ownership. Index.

"Urban land policy is a part of urban development policy and must be viewed within the framework of general development policies. One of the goals of development policies is to mobilize the resources of a country in order to achieve socio economic objectives. The basic goal of urban land policy is to achieve the socio economic maximization of land use.

The difficulty of establishing a land policy results from the nature of urban land. Land is both one of the natural resources of a nation and one of the essential goods necessary for the existence of the individual. Land is a basis for urban settlements where people live work and use services. Therefore a land policy has to be based on a socio economic approach.

One of the goals of urban land policies may be defined as supplying land needed for urban development in the appropriate location at the right time. Because land policies are a part of development policies they are influenced by the socioeconomic and political structure of a country and its level of development." (jacket)