Rapid expansion of settlements and related infrastructures is a global trend that comes with severe environmental, economic, and social costs. Steering urbanization toward well-balanced compactness is thus acknowledged as an important strategic orientation in UN Sustainable Development Goal 11 (SDG-11) via the SDG-indicator “Ratio of land consumption rate to population growth rate.” The EU’s simultaneous commitment to being “a frontrunner in implementing […] the SDGs” and to striving for “no net land take until 2050” calls for relating the concepts of land consumption and land take to each other. Drawing on an EU-centred questionnaire study, a focus group and a literature review, we scrutinize definitions of land consumption and land take, seeking to show how they are interrelated, and questioning the comparability of respective indicators. We argue that conceptual clarifications and a bridging of the two notions are much needed, and that the precision required for definitions and applications is context-dependent. While approximate understandings may suffice for general communication and dissemination objectives, accurate and consistent interpretations of the discussed concepts seem indispensable for monitoring and reporting purposes. We propose ways of addressing existing ambiguities and suggest prioritizing the term land take in the EU context. Thereby, we aim to enhance conceptual clarity around land consumption and land take—a precondition for solidly informing respective policies and decisions.

How do municipalities strategically use land policy to develop land for housing? The development of housing is a challenge for many European countries, though the scale and time of it differs. Issues are not always about the absolute number of houses that need to be supplied in a country. The distribution and quality of houses affect the demand for housing. Land policy determines where and how future developments take place, and as a result, it has a considerable impact on both supply and demand of housing. Municipalities use different strategies of land policy to pursue housing goals. This paper aims to explore the rationalities underpinning such strategies of land policy. Therefore, a theory on pluralism – Cultural Theory – is employed to understand municipal strategies in different contexts, i.e. Germany (Ruhr region), Belgium (Flanders), and Netherlands. Applying Cultural Theory to land policy results in four ideal-typical strategies of active, passive, reactive, and protective land policies. Despite the fact that the decisions of municipalities are made within (or constrained by) their institutional environments (i.e. national/regional planning systems, development cultures, etc.), we found that there are key similarities between the strategies of the studied municipalities regardless of their different institutional environments.

In many cities, there has been renewed interest over the last 30 years in densification as part of wider efforts to combat urban sprawl. In daily practice, however, densification is a contested process because of its redistributive effects. Next to potential environmental advantages, it produces both benefits and losses for different individuals and households. The redistributive effects are an expression of conflicts between environmental, economic, and social dimensions of sustainability. We show that the latter is heavily impacted: if densification projects are not designed to the needs of people who are actually supposed to benefit from it—the residents—low-income groups are at risk of social displacement. This scenario is highly unsustainable. By using a neo-institutional approach and comparative case study methodology conducted in Switzerland, we analyze the institutional rules and the involved actors’ strategies when dealing with densification projects. We explain the mechanisms leading to the loss of social qualities when competing with economic interests of investors and authorities.

Land-policy instruments are important to local governments for the implementation of densification. This article explores the factors behind local governments’ motives that determine the use of spe...

In this paper, an analytical model for measuring match and mismatch between social housing units and their tenants is presented and applied to the social rented housing sector of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Through the use of a large set of unique micro-data combining housing unit and household characteristics, mismatches on two key dimensions of physical adequacy and affordability and for different household types and parts of the city can be revealed. Empirically assessing the (mis)match of social housing units at a small scale – where socio and spatial (mis)matches manifest – creates opportunities for innovation in the analysis of effects of market mechanisms and local housing allocation policies. An improved understanding of these mismatches based on a strong empirical base can be related to and evaluated against different principles of distributive justice. The findings for the case of Amsterdam show that the famous large social housing stock incorporates significant mismatches. Households in the least popular parts of the city comparatively do not live affordably and large inequities exist between households based on length of residence. These findings offer a basis for further exploration of the complex of housing allocation, changing housing distributions and the resulting outcomes in terms of distributive justice.