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Land Value Capture from Touristic Development: Methodological Approach and Practical Implementation
Abstract
Considering the increasing touristic supply and demand, globalization, and the entailed increases in property prices, which strategies and instruments should urban planning use to take advantage of these higher prices and revert them on behalf of the local inhabitants to ensure them a good quality of life? This article will propose a planning instrument that is based on the capture of betterments that stem from municipal decisions, which will revert to the infrastructure's provision, maintenance, and renewal that result from urban interventions or to fulfill social goals, or both in traditional residential neighborhoods. In this article, this instrument will be applied to Planning Unit UP11 (UP11) of the Urban Development Plan for the Municipality of Lagoa, Algarve, Portugal. This article could contribute to the debate on the role of planning and tourism-oriented land use management strategies, policies, and instruments. It will attempt to assess the impact of public-engendered land betterments on local populations and could create value for local communities, which ensures their quality of life.
O artigo apresenta uma proposta de afetação social das mais-valias urbanísticas. Partimos do que estabelece a Lei nº31/2014 – LBGPPSOTU – para clarificar aquilo que deve ser entendido como afetação social das mais-valias. Desenvolve-se uma proposta de alteração tendo em vista concretizar os objetivos de justiça social que a lei visa atingir. Discute-se a alteração no quadro da relação que o Estado estabelece com o Mercado em torno do desenvolvimento urbano e em particular na relação entre o Estado regulador e o Estado produtor. E ainda se apresenta a aplicação de uma proposta de financiamento da Política de Habitação. Esta pesquisa baseia-se numa investigação conduzida no concelho de Alcochete.
Over the past few decades, the adaptive reuse of buildings—transforming them to meet new functional and aesthetic needs and requirements—has become a highly specialized domain within architectural and conservation practice, and is becoming a field of scholarly study in its own right. However, in juxtaposition with this highly specialized practice, people reuse and adapt all sorts of buildings in spontaneous and informal ways in a process we call “vernacular adaptation.” This paper investigates such vernacular adaptation of built heritage, along with its specific characteristics, opportunities, and threats as well as its influence on more formal adaptive reuse practice. As methodology, we examine relevant literature to review historical and contemporary examples of vernacular adaptation and reuse. In conclusion, we present the vernacular approach as a valuable alternative to the “formal” or specialized, top-down method to managing existing built environment, especially for buildings and sites that possess compelling social value. Moreover, our study indicates that in practice, the division between the vernacular and the formal is not rigid, elaborating on the possibilities and risks of joined initiatives between local communities and private or public developers.
Num contexto em que se assiste à crescente concorrência global entre os territórios pela captação de
recursos susceptíveis de incentivar o desenvolvimento (investimentos, moradores, turistas, eventos, entre outros), o planeamento estratégico ancorado a uma perspectiva de marketing territorial assume-se como
uma ferramenta de gestão territorial extremamente útil e actual no processo de constituição de uma
imagem eficaz do território, de modo a que se torne mais apelativa para os públicos pretendidos.
Face aos condicionalismos inerentes ao quadro de inserção territorial da Região Autónoma da Madeira
(insularidade, ultraperiferia, descontinuidade territorial) e, em paralelo, às oportunidades de
desenvolvimento que a mesma encerra, efectua-se um diagnóstico multi-sectorial e avalia-se a percepção
dos residentes e turistas relativamente às dinâmicas de desenvolvimento, qualidade de vida e satisfação
global do território.
Num último momento avalia-se de que maneira a Região Autónoma, enquanto destino turístico de
qualidade reconhecida, tem projectado os seus produtos turísticos e através de que canais é difundida a
imagem da Região. Por fim, é valorizado um instrumento de planeamento, procurando avaliar em que
medida o planeamento estratégico de marketing territorial poderá contribuir para estruturar o território
internamente e o integrar em espaços mais vastos, através de acções que assegurem a satisfação dos
cidadãos, investidores e visitantes.
The issue of land use regulations and property values carries deep economic, social, and distributive-justice implications. This article revisits the upward side of the land-value coin to examine its relevance in today's world. It first addresses the issue and debates over real-property rights and the history of value capture policies. It also proposes a theoretical distinction between macro, direct, and indirect instruments for value capture. Following this, it focuses on direct value capture, and surveys the laws and policies in thirteen advanced-economy countries and draws out the lessons that may be learned from these experiences. Furthermore, it explains why the idea of value capture has been incrementally transformed into a plethora of indirect value capture instruments with growing popularity around the world. Finally, the article sets out challenges for future cross-national learning.
This paper pleads for revisiting Urban Development Projects (UDPs) in the light of the financialization
of the urban built environment. If the rising integration of the urban fabric and financial
markets has been acknowledged, it remains incidental to most of the literature on UDPs. The restructuring
of the built environment (real estate, infrastructures) into bundles of assets provided
for finance capital investors looking to diversify their portfolio through risk-adjusted strategies is
developing on an increasing scale, from so-called ‘developed’ to ‘emerging’ countries. We posit that
contemporary UDPs are an attempt to transform land-use by leveraging resources (including capital)
exchanged on real estate markets. Therefore, the financialization of UDPs can be tackled through
an analysis of the processes through which investors’ strategies and requirements may be circulated
among key actors of UDPs (e.g. local authorities, planners, development agencies, property developers).
Three paths through which UDPs are shaped for finance capital investors are examined. First,
the production of market representations, by internationalized property consultants, skewed towards
investors’ standards. Second, the tailoring of buildings as ‘quasi-financial’ assets in the course of real
estate development, through which developers seek to address this now dominant financial clientele.
Third, the evolution of strategic planning and land development, whether as a byproduct of greater
room gained by developers, or as a result of a direct targeting of the investment industry by local
public authorities and their development agencies. Eventually, the paper discusses three avenues for
research for an urban political economy of one salient, though undersearched, aspect of the financialization
of cities.
Barcelona's redevelopment has been widely celebrated for its apparently successful combination of cultural strategies with urban regeneration to address social problems. The ‘Barcelona model’ has evolved, however, with changing relationships between urban regeneration, the use of culture and modes of governance. The role of cultural strategy has shifted from being part of a cultural vernacular with social and political citizenship at its core to become a functional tool for ensuring social cohesion and marketing the city's brand. This is linked to a gradual dilution of bottom-up participatory democracy in governance. Pressures for international competitiveness are challenging the sustainability of the ‘Barcelona model’, while local actors are trying to ensure social justice at home.
Le réaménagement de Barcelone a été salué pour son alliance apparemment réussie de stratégies culturelles et de régénération urbaine destinée à remédier aux problèmes sociaux. Cependant, le ‘modèle de Barcelone’ a évolué avec les nouveaux rapports entre régénération urbaine, utilisation de la culture et modes de gouvernance. La stratégie culturelle a changé de rôle : de style local culturel nourrissant une citoyenneté sociale et politique, elle est devenue un outil fonctionnel visant à assurer la cohésion sociale et à commercialiser la marque de la ville. Cette situation est liée à un déclin progressif de la démocratie participative ascendante dans la gouvernance. Les tensions créées par la concurrence internationale remettent en question la pérennité du ‘modèle de Barcelone’, tandis que les acteurs locaux tentent de garantir la justice sociale sur place.
Land Value Capture (LVC) has long been advocated by international organizations as a funding source to support local improvements in urban infrastructure and services. The question is whether it is an effective and sustainable option for local governments? This paper examines efforts to implement LVC. The distinction is drawn between cost recovery and LVC more broadly. Tools for cost recovery are assessed and successful strategies described. Available tools for LVC are evaluated and generally found wanting. An alternative approach using a restructured annual land tax is proposed.
Place marketing is increasingly used by local governments to enhance the image of cities and achieve policy goals related to economic and spatial development. Place marketing has become part of local and regional governance processes. Critics have argued that place marketing is often applied in top-down ways that exclude citizens. Drawing on survey data this article empirically confirms this critique. But the article shows with a case study that citizen involvement in place branding can be used to enhance the quality of the brand and include citizens’ emotions in governance processes.
Points for practitioners The influence of citizens on place marketing is generally low. Nonetheless, when citizens are given influence the effects of place marketing on spatial plans and other policies increases, according to respondents of this study. Place branding can be carried out interactively with citizens, and then be applied to include citizens’ emotions in governance processes. This may be used to enrich and locally embed governance processes, and prevent citizens’ protest.
Place marketing is increasingly being used as a governance strategy for managing perceptions about regions, cities, and towns. What are the most important obstacles
to implementing place marketing? Based on a survey of 274 public managers involved in place marketing in the Netherlands, this article analyzes the main obstacles as perceived by public managers. It also analyzes the effects of obstacles on perceived results of place marketing in terms of attracting target groups. A factor analysis of a variety of obstacles investigated in the survey shows three clearly demarcated obstacles: administrative obstacles within municipalities, obstacles in developing the substance of marketing campaigns, and political obstacles. Obstacles in developing the substance of the marketing campaigns have signifi cant eff ects on the results of place marketing in terms of attracting stakeholders, whereas the two other obstacles have no signifi cant infl uence.
Everywhere in the world, land use law and regulation affect real property values -- either increasing or decreasing them. Regulatory takings is the potential raw nerve of land use regulation, yet policymakers and civic groups have tackled the issue without the perspective that a cross-national exchange of ideologies, laws, and practices can provide.Takings International is the first large-scale effort devoted to this controversial issue, providing a vast platform of comparative knowledge on direct, indirect, categorical, and partial takings. Written for legal professionals, academics, urban and regional planners, real estate developers, and civil-society groups, the book analyzes thirteen advanced economy countries representing a variety of legal regimes, institutional structures, cultures, geographic sizes, and population densities.The comparative prism yields some surprising and counterintuitive observations. In a climate of intensifying controversies about property and the role of public agencies, the book enables informed debate and provides all sides with a sense of scale by which to evaluate current state practices and propose alternatives.
This paper examines the impact of tax increment financing (TIF) on business property value. Using parcel-level data from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, from 1980 to1999, a semilog econometric model is estimated using fixed effects regression. A two-stage estimation process is also used to test and correct for potential self-selection bias and endogeneity associated with TIF implementation. The findings suggest that the provision of public services offered within TIF districts is capitalized into business property value over time. The magnitude of this effect is the largest of all factors considered. The analysis also reveals that self-selection bias is likely associated with TIF implementation. The endogenously determined probability that a property will be placed within a TIF district is positively correlated with the property's value. Finally, the analysis reveals that the impact of TIF might be underestimated in the absence of corrections for self-selection bias and endogeneity.
: This article represents a broad and occasionally polemical meditation on the nature and significance of creative cities. I seek to situate the concept of creative cities within the context of the so-called new economy and to trace out the connections of these phenomena to recent shifts in technologies, structures of production, labor markets, and the dynamics of locational agglomeration. I try to show, in particular, how the structures of the new economy unleash historically specific forms of economic and cultural innovation in modern cities. The argument is concerned passim with policy issues and, above all, with the general possibilities and limitations faced by policymakers in any attempt to build creative cities. The effects of globalization are discussed, with special reference to the prospective emergence of a worldwide network of creative cities bound together in relations of competition and cooperation. In the conclusion, I pinpoint some of the darker dimensions—both actual and potential—of creative cities.
In 1996, the Los Angeles Bus Riders Union, a grassroots advocacy organization, won a historic legal victory against the city’s Metropolitan Transit Authority. The resulting consent decree forced the MTA for a period of ten years to essentially reorient the mass transit system to better serve the city’s poorest residents. A stunning reversal of conventional governance and planning in urban America, which almost always favors wealthier residents, this decision is also a concrete example of spatial justice in action. This book argues that justice has a geography and that the equitable distribution of resources, services, and access is a basic human right. Building on current concerns in critical geography and the new spatial consciousness, the book interweaves theory and practice, offering new ways of understanding and changing the unjust geographies in which we live. After tracing the evolution of spatial justice and the closely related notion of the right to the city in the influential work of Henri Lefebvre, David Harvey, and others, it demonstrates how these ideas are now being applied through a series of case studies in Los Angeles, the city at the forefront of this movement. The book focuses on such innovative labor-community coalitions as Justice for Janitors, the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, and the Right to the City Alliance; on struggles for rent control and environmental justice; and on the role that faculty and students in the UCLA Department of Urban Planning have played in both developing the theory of spatial justice and putting it into practice.
Purpose
The purpose of the study is to verify the theoretical assumptions based on literature review regarding the issue of brand effectiveness evaluation and the potential measurement framework, as well as to provide insights into the nature of effectiveness measurement of city brand strategies. The findings are considered important foundations for designing a place branding measurement system, which is the next step and final purpose of the author’s research project.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 12 international academic experts from eight countries (in four continents) were individually interviewed. A semi-structured individual interview was applied as a research method. Sampling was purposive and the respondents represented the fields of marketing, place branding and public management. The standardized set of 19 open-ended questions was categorized into four themes (city brand effectiveness, methodology, measurement process and indicators).
Findings
The measurement of effectiveness of city branding should be treated as a strategic endeavor; however, it is a complex issue where political, social and methodological challenges overlap. Barriers to the development of a well-functioning measurement system include: too narrow understanding of what brand is, lack of knowledge or culture of measurement, conflicting political interests, reluctance to involve internal stakeholders, insufficient funding and complexity of the brand itself. The reliable measurement system should be characterized by attributes such as simplicity and durability, stakeholder inclusion, political rationale, adjustment to the specificity of the city and the independence of the measuring body/institution.
Originality/value
Up-to-date, common standards or universal measurement frames of the place branding measurement system do not exist. No discussion can be found in the literature on how such a system should be designed and implemented. Opinions of the experts interviewed provide important insights into the components and conditions of the reliable measurement system that would meet both methodological standards and practical needs. Further studies and analyses are however necessary to eventually compose the optimal city brand measurement system.
This entry explains the rising popularity of the concept of financialization, despite it being considered a vague and chaotic concept. It also summarizes the wide‐ranging multidisciplinary literature on financialization and makes a distinction between seven dimensions, or elements, of financialization, upon which a new definition of financialization is put forward that suggests that the power of the financialization literature lies in how it tries to understand the increasing dominance of financial actors, markets, practices, measurements, and narratives at various scales, resulting in a structural transformation of economies, firms (including financial institutions), states, and households. In discussing the different elements of financialization, the entry focuses on the financialization of the economy, nonfinancial firms, the state, and households, but also on the processes of banking disintermediation and assetization. Finally, some avenues for future research are suggested.
The purpose of this paper is to take part in the debate about power relationships in contemporary cities between the agents of urban renewal and the local communities, as mediated by cultural and artistic interventions and projects. Our study proposes a new conceptual frame, focused on the comparison between two notions of heterotopia as theoretical alternatives for the interpretation of cities as social and participatory spaces. The notions we consider may be traced to two key thinkers such as Michel Foucault and Henri Lefebvre, and lay the foundation for alternative analytical paradigms of the contemporary urban condition, in relation to artistic and cultural practices in the public space. We draw upon these two alternative readings of heterotopia to explore the implications of the interaction of artistic practices with the urban space as a contested terrain from the viewpoint of power relationships. In our analysis, we find that Foucault's notion of heterotopia is potentially conducive to top-down planning processes and to gentrification. Lefebvre's notion is instead possibly more suited to participatory practices as strategies of reactivation of the right to the city.
The main goal of this article consists in the proposal of a developer obligations’ instrument aimed at capturing land betterments that result from planning decisions and from the implementation of territorial plans, reassigning them to public infrastructure, equipment and social purposes. It consists in charging for extra development rights beyond average municipal urban built-up areas. It is founded on a research and consultancy work for the Portuguese Territory Department (a governmental organism) within the scope of the revision of the Land Planning Act and complementary legislation, namely the new Juridical Regime of Urbanization and Edification, and the new Juridical Regime of Territorial Management Instruments. Thus herein are presented the assumptions, methodology, outcomes and conclusions of this work.
It is applied − as a case study − to the Detail Plan of Avenue Pope John XXIII, in Fátima (in the Municipality of Ourém, Portugal), but its application is generalizable to other municipalities, and it potentially strengthens their financial status.
Considering the current widespread crisis, and taking advantage from the experience of homologous value capture instruments in other countries, the proposed instrument is intended to contribute to strengthen municipal finance. It faces more clearly and objectively the funding of territorial planning and urban development. It further aims at developing understandable, quantifiable and user-friendly decision-support instruments, and at reassigning the betterments engendered by public planning decisions on behalf of communities.
This concept and methodology supports the consolidation of the objectives of the new Portuguese Land and Planning Act. It indeed fosters the integration of territorial policies, strengthens effectiveness in plan execution, supports the economic and financial sustainability of urban development operations, and promotes equity as well as social and territorial cohesion.
This chapter sets out a simple but challenging proposition: stakeholder engagement is crucial to the success of any city branding strategy, but doing it effectively requires an approach that is more democratic and exploratory than much standard practice.
The relationship between space and politics is explored through a study of French urban policy. Drawing upon the political thought of Jacques Rancière, this book proposes a new agenda for analyses of urban policy, and provides the first comprehensive account of French urban policy in English. Essential resource for contextualizing and understanding the revolts occurring in the French 'badland' neighbourhoods in autumn 2005. Challenges overarching generalizations about urban policy and contributes new research data to the wider body of urban policy literature. Identifies a strong urban and spatial dimension within the shift towards more nationalistic and authoritarian policy governing French citizenship and immigration.
The core concern of this chapter consists in raising the problem of speculation and of greediness in converting agricultural into urban land in development processes, current in developed societies. Speculation springs as a counterpart of a succession of conceptual and operational flaws, inconsistencies and contradictions in juridical, planning and fiscal systems, which fuels the exacerbated interests of the agents straight or indirectly involved in property markets. A strategic assessment of this problem, under different perspectives, remits to the need to deal with the question of land rent and surplus-values, as they stand in the basis of its resolution. Within this scope, this article proposes and develops a methodology for the evaluation and computation of surplus values that is applied to the Portuguese land and real estate realities. Inferences and conclusions are drawn considering how legal, planning, fiscal, socio-economic and agentś behaviour perspectives shall deal with the surplus-values question, in order to efficiently solve the problem of speculation.
The financial aspects linked to planning regulatoin impact the built environemnt. The idea that the public should reaping the "unearned increment" or the "plus value" of land is by no means new. The underlying rationale is that much of the value of real property is created not by the landowner's work, but by government policies that grant development rights or by broad economic and social trends. Drawing on the author's comparative research on the laws and practices in 13 advanced-economy countries around the world, the paper addresses the degree to which recapture of the "unearned increment" is indeed a useful approach that policymakers should adopt for financing or incentivizing the delivery of public services and affordable housing. The idea of value capture in its pure form has failed to catch on widely among advanced economies, but the basic idea has not died away. In recent decades, several 'mutations' of this idea have been gaining popularity in many countries, but in widely different forms and degrees.
Local governments design a broad range of fiscal or regulatory policies that have been inspired by the idea that land value increment may be mobilized to the benefit of the community-that is of land value capture. This paper compares the experiences of North America (US and Canada) and Latin America with value capture tools and discusses the reasons why different policies have been favored and different results and degrees of success obtained in their implementation. Focusing on broad categories of value capture policies, the first part of the paper compares the overall performance and/or experience of the two regions with the capturing of land value increment through conventional taxes, fees and regulatory urban policy instruments. The second part of the paper shows that the same "value capture principle" to address similar problems (to deepen land value taxation; to finance urban infrastructure; to control land use) result in different outcomes (sometimes even opposite) in different contexts, most notably those presented in North America and Latin America, respectively. The paper's concluding section provides some evaluative comments regarding the apparent lag between the intentions and outcomes of value capture policies as experienced by the two regions.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyse a process for developing indicators of effectiveness for the city brand strategy.
Design/methodology/approach
– A single-case study method is used as the analytical approach. The proposed indicators of effectiveness were developed in cooperation between the municipal government of a large, post-industrial Polish city and representatives from academia.
Findings
– The paper addresses three important considerations to be taken into account by city managers when they seek to develop criteria for measuring the effectiveness of branding: links between tangible and intangible effects of brand implementation; spillover effects that sectoral strategies such as those aimed at urban renewal have on the city brand and vice versa; and the adoption of a threefold temporal regime whereby the effects of projects that contribute to the brand strategy are measured in the short, medium and long term.
Research limitations/implications
– The proposed approach offers a useful point of departure for place managers for the design of place brand strategy evaluation systems. The study is limited to the case of a single city.
Practical implications
– The merger of brand management and public management perspectives re-evaluates the existing attempts to measure place brand strategy effectiveness. The new approach stimulates place authorities to consider multiple perspectives on the methods and instruments of measurement. It also implies the organisational shift where a number of units from the city hall coordinate their efforts to contribute to the assessment of the brand strategy.
Social implications
– A more systematic approach to measurement of place brand strategy effectiveness can be used to increase the level of legitimacy of brand-related activities in the eyes of internal stakeholders and to increase the level of professionalism among the public officers responsible for effectiveness measurement.
Originality/value
– Theoretical considerations and the practice of place branding alike tend to give insufficient attention to criteria for measuring the effectiveness of place-branding strategies. This paper concentrates on the process of translating general strategic objectives into specific, measureable and time-bound operational indicators. The combination of theoretical insights into place branding together with public management grounds this approach in the administrative environment in which local authorities work.
The emerging convergence between the disciplines contributing to the development of place branding as a field of study has led to a more holistic view of the subject, broadening the research platform and encouraging the publication of future research agendas. Nevertheless, place branding research has only just begun to take account of the significant deepening and broadening of the mainstream branding domain. Greater conceptual understanding of branding concepts is required before place branding can be regarded as a mature domain of study. This chapter delineates the place branding construct by identifying the concepts that form and reflect it and the variables that moderate its implementation and impact. The chapter begins with a review of the mainstream branding construct in order to identify concepts of relevance to place branding. On the basis of this analysis seven concepts which are central to the place branding construct are proposed: the brand image, positioning and equity, brand extension, brand architecture, brand identity and orientation. Secondly, three moderating variables are identified: brand objectives, brand management and performance measurement. Issues of transference are then discussed.
In this article, I seek to sharpen the discussion about my book Capital in the twenty-first century, and to address some of the many issues raised by the very interesting papers that were put together by the editors of Basic Income Studies. I start by summarizing the multidimensional approach to capital and power that I develop in my book. I then clarify the role played by r>g in my analysis of wealth inequality. Finally, I discuss some of the implications of my analysis for optimal taxation; the relation between wealth, welfare and power; the basic income proposal; and the regulation of capital and property relations.
Increasingly, governments are experimenting with ways to provide public goods by involving the private sector in the planning, financing, building and operating of a range of services, facilities, infrastructure, etc. In the geographical literature on neoliberalism this entanglement of the state and markets has been loosely conceptualized as a process of marketization. This concept describes the insertion of markets or market forces into the state and public sector. In this paper we unpack this concept by highlighting the need to think about a range of marketization processes at play across a range of geographies.
After years of separate development, there has recently been a convergence between the academic domains of urban policy, tourism and mainstream branding resulting in the emergence of a new domain of place branding. This convergence has, in part, been assisted by developments in the mainstream branding domain associated with corporate and services brands. At the same time, at least one book and several articles have been published, setting out agendas for future research. However, these might be regarded as deficient in two ways. First, they take no account of the conceptual development of mainstream branding theory, and second they take no account of the views of practitioners. In both these cases, further opportunities for research might be identified. This article addresses these deficiencies by supplementing the recently published research agendas with a thematic review of the mainstream branding and place branding literatures, and field interviews with 25 senior managers in place branding organisations. The identified themes are compared with recently published place branding research agendas and a cross-disciplinary agenda for future research is discussed.
This paper examines neighborhood decline and takes up the larger issue of formulating a strategy for regrowth. A case study of Marseille France highlights this strategy along with possible criteria for policy transfer to American cities. The strategy is designated by the author as High-Intensity Concentrated Area Development (HICAD). The HICAD strategy differs from those used in the United States and employs five basic ideas—selection, pressure, magnification (connectivity), leverage and a holistic perspective. HICAD proved to be transformative in Marseille. Over the course of 15 years it brought back densities, increased employment, rebuilt infrastructure and renewed a community. HICAD is also portable and may be used in conjunction with other strategies currently applied in American cities. Notwithstanding these benefits the strategy gives rise to issues of social equity. The French experience also enables us to understand that urban decline may differ in cause and consequence. Accordingly the strategic responses will also vary.
It is a little over 30 years since Jim Callaghan's Labour Government passed the 1978 Inner Urban Areas Act. The following year marked a shift in power to Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Government and a very different approach to urban regeneration. These developments established and shaped the approach to urban regeneration in England for a generation. The economic context and the urban changes of the 1970s and 1980s and the nature of these responses put England at the forefront of the evolution of this type of urban policy in Europe. It is therefore timely to reflect on 30 years of urban regeneration and to do so from a comparative perspective, setting the English experience alongside that of Germany and France. In this paper the authors compare the experiences of these three countries. The great benefit of international comparison is that it allows the observer to step outside their own institutions and context, to compare with other countries and to look back at their own country from a new, foreign, perspective. The emphasis of this paper is on the contingent and contextualised nature of actions designed to foster urban regeneration. This reinforces the rationale for studying the evolution of this policy field in different nation-state settings.
This article pays special attention to the spatial dimension of public capital in regional economic growth. We assume that the effect of infrastructure on productivity depends on the type of public infrastructure in question: that is, local infrastructures enhance economic activity in the area where they are located, whereas transport and communication infrastructure may produce both benefits in the area where they are located and positive or negative spillovers to other regions. We also obtain conclusions on whether the link between growth and public capital depends on the amount of existing public capital stocks. Results for the Spanish provinces during a long time period suggest that the returns to local infrastructure are much greater than the returns to transportation, although in both cases, we observe strong decreasing returns to their accumulation. Finally, negative spillovers across regions in transport capital investments are obtained.