5 Urbanisation and Land Use Change
91
et al. 2005), congestion charges in inner urban areas (Anas and Rhee 2006), or
graduated density zoning (Shoup 2008). These efforts have helped to make the
existing urban area as attractive as newly developed areas as a place to invest,
develop, set up a business, live and work, from the perspectives of economic
return, social satisfaction and environmental quality (Couch and Karecha 2006).
Moreover, the most common strategies of urban development include the densification and intensification of existing settlements by reusing brownfields and
creating infill development.
5.5 Outlook
It is widely accepted today that extensive urban land use change brings about several
unwelcome effects in that it goes along with the loss of open land and natural
resources, causes ecological damage, generates automobile dependence, wastes
energy, leads to atmospheric pollution, imposes economic costs on local authorities, and implies potential negative social effects such as the exacerbation of spatial
social segregation and the exclusion of non-car-owning households from a good deal
of work and leisure facilities. The regulation of urban land use change is therefore a
key issue of land use policy.
In recent years, however, concerns about the dynamics of urban development and
land use change seem to have diminished—at least in the European context. This
may be due in part to the wide range of strategies and instruments that exist and can
be employed today to bring urban land use change under control. Yet the main reason
for reduced worries related to land-demanding developments is probably linked to
current reurbanisation trends in many European urban regions. As the demand for
inner-city housing has significantly increased in recent years, there is a widespread
perception that the problem of extensive urban land use change and urban sprawl
has vanished. However, a closer look reveals that in most countries and regions,
the dynamic of urban land use change is largely unbroken (e.g. Hierse et al. 2017;
Hesse and Siedentop 2018) Therefore, reflecting on how urban land use change can
be controlled is still a key element of land use policy and planning. In particular, it
seems useful to account for a few challenges in this regard:
1. It appears crucial to embed any attempt to minimise urban land use change
in a strategy which at the same time eliminates existing incentives for landconsuming development. It is therefore important to identify and then counteract
such incentives in, for instance, tax policies or policies for structural development.
2. Since the rigid control of urban land use change is largely dependent on the political will to achieve this task (which is often lacking), the provision of powerful
tools to monitor land use changes and to assess their various impacts is essential.
In this vein, ongoing attempts to seek scientifically sound arguments in favour
of compact urban development can facilitate efforts to minimise urban land use
change with scientific evidence.
91
et al. 2005), congestion charges in inner urban areas (Anas and Rhee 2006), or
graduated density zoning (Shoup 2008). These efforts have helped to make the
existing urban area as attractive as newly developed areas as a place to invest,
develop, set up a business, live and work, from the perspectives of economic
return, social satisfaction and environmental quality (Couch and Karecha 2006).
Moreover, the most common strategies of urban development include the densification and intensification of existing settlements by reusing brownfields and
creating infill development.
5.5 Outlook
It is widely accepted today that extensive urban land use change brings about several
unwelcome effects in that it goes along with the loss of open land and natural
resources, causes ecological damage, generates automobile dependence, wastes
energy, leads to atmospheric pollution, imposes economic costs on local authorities, and implies potential negative social effects such as the exacerbation of spatial
social segregation and the exclusion of non-car-owning households from a good deal
of work and leisure facilities. The regulation of urban land use change is therefore a
key issue of land use policy.
In recent years, however, concerns about the dynamics of urban development and
land use change seem to have diminished—at least in the European context. This
may be due in part to the wide range of strategies and instruments that exist and can
be employed today to bring urban land use change under control. Yet the main reason
for reduced worries related to land-demanding developments is probably linked to
current reurbanisation trends in many European urban regions. As the demand for
inner-city housing has significantly increased in recent years, there is a widespread
perception that the problem of extensive urban land use change and urban sprawl
has vanished. However, a closer look reveals that in most countries and regions,
the dynamic of urban land use change is largely unbroken (e.g. Hierse et al. 2017;
Hesse and Siedentop 2018) Therefore, reflecting on how urban land use change can
be controlled is still a key element of land use policy and planning. In particular, it
seems useful to account for a few challenges in this regard:
1. It appears crucial to embed any attempt to minimise urban land use change
in a strategy which at the same time eliminates existing incentives for landconsuming development. It is therefore important to identify and then counteract
such incentives in, for instance, tax policies or policies for structural development.
2. Since the rigid control of urban land use change is largely dependent on the political will to achieve this task (which is often lacking), the provision of powerful
tools to monitor land use changes and to assess their various impacts is essential.
In this vein, ongoing attempts to seek scientifically sound arguments in favour
of compact urban development can facilitate efforts to minimise urban land use
change with scientific evidence.