Perspectivas urbanas

This Spanish-language book assembles more than 60 Land Lines articles—originally published in English from 1994 to 2005—on land policy challenges and experiments in Latin America. A supplementary CD-ROM features the contents of the book along with 21 additional articles published between 2005 and...

Equitably developing america’s smaller legacy cities

Many smaller industrial cities in the Rust Belt declined in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This report presents strategies for reinventing these places—tapping their full potential while preparing workers for jobs, helping local businesses expand, empowering residents to become civic l...

China's environmental policy and urban development

This volume tackles a range of ecological issues caused by rapid urban growth in China and examines the policies meant to protect the environment. It features discussions from leading scholars on current regulations, government decentralization and environmental protection, urban development, ind...

After great disasters

Great natural disasters are rare, but their aftermath can change the fortunes of a city or region forever. This book and its companion Policy Focus Report identify lessons from different parts of the world to help communities and government leaders better organize for recovery after future disast...

Town-gown collaboration in land use and development

Once considered enclaves of intellectual pursuit, they now play a much broader role in their neighborhoods and cities. The character of communities near expanding educational institutions drives a need for collaboration between public officials and school administrators. The evolution of universi...

Proposition 13

Rethinking property tax incentives for business

State and local governments use many types of property tax incentives to increase business development. This report reviews those incentives, summarizes the literature regarding their effectiveness, and makes recommendations for reforming their use to help policy makers and local government offic...

Through the roof

This report shows what local governments can do to mitigate the rising cost of rental housing. It considers the root causes of high rent burdens, reviews evidence about the consequences, and lays out a framework that cities, towns, and counties can use to help provide all their citizens with safe...

Climate change and land policies

Developing policies that will keep climate change in check has become a global priority, as increasing greenhouse gas emissions contribute to extreme weather patterns. If these emissions remain unabated, changes in global temperatures and the subsequent relocation of human settlements and economi...

Reinventing development regulations

In this practical guide, two well-known experts argue that municipal leaders can dramatically improve the quality of life in their communities by adjusting local land use regulations. Barnett, one of the pioneers of the modern practice of city design, and Blaesser, a land use and real estate lawy...

Urban planning tools for climate change mitigation

Land use patterns and urban form can strongly impact an urban community’s contribution to global climate change through the production of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). Key contributors to a city’s climate footprint include the physical arrangement of streets and public transportation infrastruc...

Emerging land and housing markets in china

This book reviews the history of China’s land market reforms, evaluates the current situation and presents outlooks for the future in a way that is accessible to a wide audience of decision makers, nongovernmental organizations, and academics. It is one of the few records of this kind available i...

Rethinking the property tax–school funding dilemma

This report focuses on the roles of the local property tax and state aid in the funding of public education and analyzes their strengths and weaknesses.

Property tax assessment limits

This policy focus report examines options that exist for timely and efficient aid to needy taxpayers, including circuit breaker programs that reduce taxes based on income level; truth in taxation measures; deferral options on property tax payments; partial exemptions on owner-occupied or homestea...

The tiebout model at fifty

This book commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Charles Tiebout’s enormously influential article, “A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures,” and honors the contributions of Wallace Oates as expositor and popularizer of the Tiebout model. While Tiebout holds the patent on the hyp...

Urbanization in china

Addressing the most pressing issues of urbanization in China—urban planning, land policy, rural-to-urban migration, and financing—this book enhances our understanding of the challenges at hand and helps policy makers and urban planners make decisions that are economically sound, environmentally d...

Special districts

Property tax relief for homeowners

This report is the go-to resource on the options that U.S. states have to provide property tax relief for homeowners without compromising municipal fiscal health or services. The authors present the pros and cons of measures that can effectively provide relief without undermining the property tax...

Education, land, and location

Because most children throughout the world attend elementary and secondary schools near their homes, where they live usually determines where they go to school. In the United States, the relationship between residential location and education has been especially strong given the dominance of loca...

Challenging the conventional wisdom on the property tax

This book reviews the role of the property tax, addresses the reasons behind its poor performance in practice, and critiques the conventional wisdom in academic literature on the subject. It also suggests ways for government officials to achieve greater voter confidence and more robust property t...

Regional planning in america

This best seller for regional planners introduces the foundations and applications of their practice in the United States. It offers guidance and inspiration to help professionals and students understand local issues in a regional and global context, define planning regions based on functional pr...

How to use exploratory scenario planning (xsp)

Exploratory scenario planning (XSP) can help communities prepare for uncertainties posed by climate change, automation, and other unprecedented twenty-first-century challenges. This manual is a comprehensive resource for anyone interested in using this emergent planning approach, which is effecti...

Implementing a local property tax where there is no real estate market

This report summarizes what was learned from a workshop held in a tribal area of Limpopo Province, which sought to assist local residents in identifying land attributes that affect the relative desirability of different plots, and to apply those criteria to selected plots as a step toward develop...

Preserving affordable homeownership

This book provides new and updated information about current policy collaborations among community land trusts, cities, counties, and states working to address the housing affordability crisis.

Conservation capital in the americas

Conservation finance innovations are central to protecting ecosystems. Through case studies, this book shows environmentalists and policy makers how to find the financial, human, social, and natural capital to steward the earth's resources for future generations.

Evaluating smart growth

This policy focus report complements a larger volume that compares four states with smart growth programs (Florida, Maryland, New Jersey, and Oregon) and four other states without such programs (Colorado, Indiana, Texas, and Virginia). The analysis reveals that programs vary greatly across the fo...

Preservar la vivienda asequible

This Spanish language report provides new and updated information about current policy collaborations among community land trusts (CLT), cities, counties, and states working to address the housing affordability crisis.

The property tax-school funding dilemma

This report seeks to correct common misconceptions surrounding the practice of relying on the property tax to fund public schools. Through a comprehensive review of research and seven case studies, it offers recommendations that policy makers can use both to provide significant property tax relie...

City tech

In this book, Rob Walker investigates the new technologies afoot and their implications for planners, policymakers, residents, and the virtual and literal landscapes of the cities we call home.

State trust lands in the west

This comprehensive report offers state trust land managers the latest strategies and tools for asset management, residential and commercial development, conservation use, and collaborative planning. Land managers will learn how to fulfill their trust responsibilities while producing larger revenu...

Affordable housing mediation

Lessons from sandy

This report, spurred by the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, identifies a set of policies, regulations, and administrative practices that federal agencies can adopt to help coastal metropolitan regions recover quickly from natural disasters and reduce future risk in the face of climate change and ri...

The empty house next door

Renowned city planner and housing advocate Alan Mallach presents effective strategies for community leaders, local officials, and nonprofits contending with vacant properties in the United States. Examples illustrate creative ways to reduce the harm caused by vacant properties, jump-start housing...

Improving the performance of the property tax in latin america

This report focuses on three areas of property tax reform in Latin America: fiscal policy, tax policies, and assessment practices and collection procedures. It also draws on an ongoing property tax system survey that provides financial, legal, and administrative data on numerous jurisdictions, al...

Nature and cities

This illustrated collection of essays by leading international architects, landscape architects, city planners, and urban designers demonstrates the economic, environmental, and public health benefits of integrating nature more fully into cities.

Arrested developments

Drawing on case studies, survey results, and data analyses of abandoned residential development projects in the U.S. Intermountain West, this report shows local leaders how to identify and overcome problems caused by the real estate boom and bust of the 2000s. It recommends measures to treat and ...

China's local public finance in transition

China's economy has developed rapidly since the economic reforms in 1978, but public finance reforms have proceeded more slowly. This book looks at three major policy options addressing the underlying imbalance between revenues and expenditures at the local level in China. This is a valuable reso...

China's housing reform and outcomes

This in-depth volume explains China's residential construction boom and reviews how some established trends are likely to challenge its housing market in coming years. It draws on household surveys and public data in China and provides important lessons about housing policy for China and other co...

Analyzing land readjustment

Great effort has been devoted to the precise delineation and assignment of the legal and physical boundaries of private property. Yet, issues of unifying or assembling private property rights for urban redevelopment remain understudied. The contributors to this book search for viable alternatives...