Governmentalities of land value capture in urban redevelopment

Major urban redevelopment projects entail the drawing upon and coordinating of vast resources including land, capital, and expert knowledge. At the core of urban redevelopment emerge policy instruments, including Land Value Capture (LVC), that smooth the way for desired project outcomes. This article explores three major urban redevelopment projects carried out by different coalitions of societal actors, often depicted as having irreconcilable interests and resources, in three Danish towns and cities—Aarhus, Aalborg and Køge. We suggest that governmentality perspective, with its attentiveness to the rationalities and technologies activated in governmental projects, helps us to interrogate the ways in which the interests and resources of different actors are mobilised and reconciled for value creation in LVC based redevelopment. This paper argues that land value increment, central to LVC instruments, offers limited insight into accessing the success of, or best practices in, LVC based redevelopment. LVC instruments create fields of action where the interests and resources of state and non-state actors can coalesce around broader, and some competing, ideas of value. Examining the conditions in which value is created, captured and used in LVC based redevelopment further challenges stereotypical views that depict the logics and practices of state and non-state actors as essentially antagonistic

Towards an\u2028 EU research and innovation policy agenda for nature-based solutions & re-naturing cities. Final report of the Horizon 2020 expert group on nature-based solutions and re-naturing cities.

1. Nature-based solutions harness the power and sophistication of nature to turn environmental, social and economic challenges into innovation opportunities. They can address a variety of societal challenges in sustainable ways, with the potential to contribute to green growth, 'future-proofing' society, fostering citizen well-being, providing business opportunities and positioning Europe as a leader in world markets. \u2028 2. Nature-based solutions are actions which are inspired by, supported by or copied from nature. They have tremendous potential to be energy and resource-efficient and resilient to change, but to be successful they must be adapted to local conditions. \u2028 3. Many nature-based solutions result in multiple co-benefits for health, the economy, society and the environment, and thus they can represent more efficient and cost-effective solutions than more traditional approaches. \u2028 4. An EU Research & Innovation (R&I) agenda on nature-based solutions will enable Europe to become a world leader both in R&I and in the growing market for nature-based solutions. For this, the evidence base for the effectiveness of nature-based solutions needs to be developed and then used to implement solutions. Both need to be done in conjunction with stakeholders. The potential for transferability and upscaling of solutions also requires further investigation. There is also a need to develop a systemic approach that combines technical, business, finance, governance, regulatory and social innovation. \u2028 5. Four principal goals have been identified that can be addressed by nature-based solutions: �� Enhancing sustainable urbanisation through nature-based solutions can stimulate economic growth as well as improving the environment, making cities more attractive, and enhancing human well-being. \u2028 �� Restoring degraded ecosystems using nature-based solutions can improve the resilience of ecosystems, enabling them to deliver vital ecosystem services and also to meet other societal challenges. \u2028 �� Developing climate change adaptation and mitigation using nature-based solutions can provide more resilient responses and enhance the storage of carbon. \u2028 �� Improving risk management and resilience using nature-based solutions can lead to greater benefits than conventional methods and offer synergies in reducing multiple risks. \u2028 6. Based on the four goals, seven nature-based solutions for R&I actions are recommended to be taken forward by the European Commission and Member States: �� Urban regeneration through nature-based solutions \u2028 �� Nature-based solutions for improving well-being in urban areas \u2028 �� Establishing nature-based solutions for coastal resilience \u2028 �� Multi-functional nature-based watershed management and ecosystem restoration \u2028 �� Nature-based solutions for increasing the sustainability of the use of matter and energy \u2028 �� Nature-based solutions for enhancing the insurance value of ecosystems \u2028 �� Increasing carbon sequestration through nature-based solutions \u2028This report was produced by the Horizon 2020 Expert Group on 'Nature-Based Solutions and Re- Naturing Cities', informed by the findings of an e-consultation and a stakeholder workshop. \u202

Developing urban growth and urban quality: Entrepreneurial governance and urban redevelopment projects in Copenhagen and Hamburg

This paper considers the cases of urban redevelopment at waterfront and brownfield sites in Copenhagen (Denmark) and Hamburg (Germany) to explore how two municipal governments have pursued divergent kinds of entrepreneurial governance, even as they have aimed to create similar kinds of new-build neighbourhoods. Copenhagen and Hamburg have both engaged in large-scale speculative development projects, simultaneously raising urban land values and adding urban public good. The cities follow a long tradition of using land value capture to raise funds for municipal activities, yet their scopes of action and tools for achieving progress have been shaped by local economic and political conditions. Although both cities began redevelopment at similar kinds of sites in the 1990s, Copenhagen’s municipal government was relatively impoverished, while Hamburg’s municipal government was relatively wealthy. As a result, even though both cities deployed state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and revolving funds models to reinvest revenues in future development, they possessed different potential strategies for increasing intercity competitiveness: Copenhagen’s immediate aim in redeveloping its Ørestad and harbour districts was to fund a citywide mass transit system and thereby enhance competitiveness through infrastructure development, while Hamburg sought to use its HafenCity waterfront redevelopment to boost competitiveness through port modernisation, increased in urban quality and commercial expansion in the city centre. By comparing these two cases, we can better understand the contingent nature of entrepreneurial governance and urban redevelopment processes.</jats:p

City Government Capacity and Patterns in Urban Development Project Governance

This article explores the mutual influence between a city government’s jurisdictional capacity (its ability to plan and implement policy) and its interactions with other governance actors. It does so by quantifying, categorizing, and analyzing the composition of governance actors at various levels (national, regional, local) and of various types (public, private, civic) that are active in large-scale urban development projects in three cities: Hamburg, Manchester, Pittsburgh. Considering these findings in the context of national governance infrastructures, the article argues that divergent arrays of jurisdictional capacity (linked to multilevel distributions of state power) influence how city governments engage with other governance actors and influence which governance actors they engage with. This not only impacts project outcomes but also ultimately reinforces the kinds of governance strategies in which cities engage. </jats:p