Una versión más actualizada de este artículo está disponible como parte del capítulo 5 del libro Perspectivas urbanas: Temas críticos en políticas de suelo de América Latina.

La tierra vacante(1) y su integración al mercado de tierras urbanas son temas raramente investigados en América Latina. Los estudios publicados al respecto tienden a limitarse a los aspectos descriptivos: es decir, principalmente a la cantidad y al tamaño de los vacíos urbanos. El contexto actual de profundas transformaciones económicas y sociales, y de cambios en los patrones de demanda de tierras en las ciudades, está propiciando un giro en la percepción de estos predios en desuso: de ser un problema, se están convirtiendo en una oportunidad.

Como parte de un proyecto de investigación patrocinado por el Instituto Lincoln, en agosto de 1998 se realizó un estudio comparativo de tierra vacante en seis ciudades latinoamericanas: Buenos Aires (Argentina), Lima (Perú), Quito (Ecuador), Rio de Janeiro (Brasil), San Salvador (El Salvador) y Santiago (Chile). Los investigadores participantes examinaron diferentes categorías de tierra vacante, los problemas que ésta genera y sus usos potenciales, así como también los cambiantes papeles de agentes tanto privados como públicos -incluyendo los gobiernos- en el manejo de los mismos. Las conclusiones del estudio destacan que estos espacios libres son elementos integrales de los complejos mercados de tierras de esas ciudades, y que afectan las políticas fiscales en materia de desarrollo urbano; por tal motivo, tienen un gran potencial para el desarrollo a gran escala. El manejo de la tierra vacante podría conducir no sólo a mejorar las condiciones de las áreas urbanas, sino también a reducir la polarización social y fomentar una mayor igualdad para sus habitantes.

Si bien las seis ciudades del estudio varían en tamaño, todas comparten ciertas características comunes, tales como un acelerado crecimiento demográfico y territorial, además de indicadores sociales similares (altas tasas de pobreza, desempleo y subempleo), déficits significativos de vivienda y de servicios públicos, y altos niveles de segregación y estratificación social geográfica. Los mercados de tierras de cada una de las ciudades tienen también características similares, aunque exhiben sus propias dinámicas en cada submercado.

Características de la tierra vacante

Esta investigación estudió cuatro características principales de la tierra vacante: tenencia, cantidad, situación y duración de la condición vacante. Como regla general, la tierra vacante latinoamericana está a cargo de uno o más de los agentes citados a continuación (cada uno con sus políticas respectivas): gestores o subdivisores inmobiliarios -legales o ilegales-; pequeños propietarios que han adquirido las tierras, pero que están incapacitadas para desarrollarlas; especuladores de bienes raíces; agricultores; empresas estatales; y otras instituciones como la Iglesia, el estado militar, el seguro social, etc.

El determinar cuánta tierra vacante hay en cada ciudad es una tarea compleja, debido a las diferentes definiciones que se le da al término en cada país (ver fig. 1), junto con los numerosos obstáculos para obtener informaciones precisas. Todo esto dificulta la comparación de datos y porcentajes en áreas metropolitanas. Aun más, en algunas de estas ciudades (San Salvador, Santiago y Buenos Aires) existe un número significativo de tierra vacante “latente”, consistente en edificaciones total o prácticamente deshabitadas que a menudo estaban ocupadas por ex-empresas estatales, y que actualmente están a la espera de nuevas inversiones que permitan su demolición o desarrollo.

En las seis ciudades estudiadas, el porcentaje de tierra vacante oscila desde un poco menos del 5 por ciento (San Salvador) hasta casi un 44 por ciento (Rio de Janeiro). Si en San Salvador se incluyera toda la tierra vacante “latente”, la suma ascendería a un 40 por ciento de toda el área metropolitana. Como un todo, la tierra vacante de las ciudades representa un porcentaje significativo de las áreas edificables -es decir, con acceso a servicios públicos- que podría albergar a una cantidad considerable de población que actualmente no dispone de acceso a la tierras urbana.

La situación de la tierra vacante es relativamente uniforme dentro de una región. Así, mientras que en los Estados Unidos tienden a estar localizados en el centro de las ciudades (principalmente espacios y sitios industriales abandonados), en América Latina la mayoría se encuentra en la periferia, donde frecuentemente son objeto de una fiera especulación y de estrategias de retención dependiendo de su accesibilidad a las redes de servicios públicos. En cambio, hay diferencias considerables en la duración del desuso de los terrenos: en Lima y en Quito, los vacíos urbanos son relativamente “nuevos”, mientras que en Buenos Aires hay algunos que han estado desocupados durante varias décadas.

Políticas y potencial de desarrollo

Un examen de las condiciones ambientales urbanas de la tierra vacante demuestra que muchos de estos sitios podrían soportar actividades residenciales o productivas, por lo que constituyen un recurso desaprovechado en el que debería construirse una infraestructura urbana a fin de mejorar la eficiencia del uso de las tierras. No obstante, otra cantidad considerable de lotes presenta una serie de importantes factores de riesgo, por ejemplo: inadecuada infraestructura básica; agua contaminada por desechos industriales; riesgo sísmico, de inundaciones o erosión; y vías de acceso deficientes. Tales terrenos no son aptos para ser urbanizados a menos que se realicen inversiones considerables que los resguarden contra tales problemas. Algunos podrían tener un gran potencial para la protección ambiental, aunque la conservación de la tierra sigue siendo un asunto de baja prioridad en América Latina.

En el estudio se afirma que, como norma general, los sectores urbanos de bajos recursos tienen poco acceso a la tierra, debido a los altos precios de la misma (a pesar de que sus valores varían según el submercado). Las áreas de expansión urbana dinámica, que ofrecen mejores vías de acceso y redes de servicios, son sumamente costosas. En varias de las ciudades estudiadas hay una gran cantidad de tierra vacante que no está a la venta y que posiblemente permanecerá desocupada por un tiempo indefinido. Los investigadores del proyecto proponen someter dichas tierras a políticas de abaratamiento de los precios, de manera de aumentar su accesibilidad a la población de bajos recursos.

En la mayoría de las ciudades latinoamericanas no existen políticas explícitas ni marcos jurídicos referentes a la tierra vacante. Donde sí existen leyes (como es el caso de Rio de Janeiro), éstas se limitan a ser meramente declaraciones de principio, y resultan ineficaces. La reciente promulgación de nueva legislación en la ciudad de Santiago ha promovido el aumento de densidad en áreas urbanas, pero todavía es muy temprano para conocer las implicancias de tales medidas(2) . De igual manera, comúnmente las legislaciones urbanas contemplan escasas referencias al medio ambiente. La tierra vacante podría desempeñar un papel importante en la sustentabilidad urbana, pero ello requiere desarrollar una mejor articulación entre las acciones ambientales y las de planificación, especialmente al nivel local.

Otra característica común de las áreas estudiadas (a excepción de Santiago), es la falta de articulación entre las política de desarrollo urbano y, más específicamente, de mercados de tierras con la política tributaria. Incluso en aquellas ciudades en las que teóricamente se ha hecho una distinción impositiva entre la tierra vacante y la ocupada -tales como Buenos Aires y Quito-, no se han producido resultados verdaderos, y los agentes encargados de tales terrenos han podido librarse de sanciones o alzas de impuestos a través de una serie de “excepciones” y exenciones fiscales.

Propuestas y criterios de planificación

Al mismo tiempo que aboga por una mayor influencia gubernamental en los mercados de tierras, en combinación con el establecimiento de programas de creación de instituciones y de capacidad entre otros mecanismos, el estudio presenta varias propuestas para el uso y la reutilización de tierra vacante en América Latina. Una de las propuestas fundamentales es la de incorporar la tierra vacante en el marco de las políticas generales de cada ciudad, desde un enfoque que considere su diversidad de condiciones. Como parte de un programa de objetivos de planificación urbana, se recomienda implementar políticas de expansión de espacios verdes, de construcción de conjuntos de vivienda para población de bajos ingresos, y de construcción de la infraestructura necesaria. Aún más, la tierra vacante debería utilizarse para promover una “racionalidad urbana” de manera de estimular la ocupación de lotes disponibles en las regiones donde ya exista una infraestructura apropiada, y de suprimir el crecimiento urbano en aquellas carentes de dicha infraestructura.

El estudio también recomienda establecer políticas urbanas en tierra vacante mediante políticas fiscales. A este respecto, algunas de las ideas discutidas sugieren ampliar la base y los instrumentos impositivos; incorporar mecanismos de aumento de la recuperación de las inversiones públicas urbanas (“captura de plusvalías”); aplicar una política progresiva de impuestos sobre bienes raíces a fin de desalentar la retención de tierras por parte de propietarios pudientes; y fomentar una mayor flexibilidad en el sistema impositivo municipal.

Estas políticas deben vincularse a otros mecanismos diseñados para frenar la expansión de la tierra vacante y la dinámica de segregación y estratificación social geográfica. Tales mecanismos podrían incluir la concesión de subsidios o créditos a bajo interés para la adquisición de materiales de construcción; la asistencia técnica para la construcción de viviendas; el establecimiento de redes de infraestructura para reducir los costos; y los créditos o períodos de para el pago de impuestos, y tarifas de servicio a la propiedad.

Otras propuestas sugieren desarrollar programas piloto de transferencia de tierras mediante sociedades público-privadas para construir en terrenos que sean propiedad del gobierno, a fin de estimular la creación de viviendas a precios accesibles. También recomiendan reutilizar algunas tierras para producción agrícola y prestar mayor atención a los factores ambientales, con la meta de asegurar la futura sustentabilidad urbana.

Nora Clichevsky, investigadora del CONICET (Buenos Aires, Argentina), es la coordinadora del proyecto de estudio de tierra vacante en seis ciudades latinoamericanas, cuyos integrantes se reunieron en agosto de 1998 para discutir sus hallazgos. Contribuyó a este artículo Laura Mullahy, asistente de investigación del Programa Latinoamericano del Instituto Lincoln.

Otros miembros del grupo de investigación fueron Julio Calderón (Lima, Perú); Diego Carrión y Andrea Carrión, miembros de CIUDAD (Quito, Ecuador); Fernanda Furtado y Fabrizio Leal de Oliveira, de la Universidad de Rio de Janeiro (Brasil); Mario Lungo y Francisco Oporto, de la Universidad Centroamericana (El Salvador); y Patricio Larraín del Ministerio de Vivienda y Urbanismo de Chile.

Notas

1. La traducción para el término vacant land varía según país. Otras traducciones posibles incluyen: terrenos baldíos, predios baldíos, tierras desocupadas, tierras disponibles, terrenos libres, terrenos vacíos, terrenos desocupados, sitios eriazos. En este artículo se usa tierra vacante, la traducción más frecuentemente ocupada en los programas del Instituto Lincoln.

2. El Plan de Regulación para el área metropolitana de Santiago tiene la meta de aumentar la densidad promedio de la ciudad en un 50 por ciento, mientras que ciertas reformas a la Ley de Rentas hechas en 1995 imponen un impuesto predial a las tierras no edificadas con objeto de desalentar la especulación de la tierra.

Public investment in urban areas often results in increased land value that benefits only a small group of private owners. In a pioneering initiative, the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil, is using the property tax as an instrument for capturing land value increments, deterring land speculation and promoting rational urban development.

Economic and Social Context

Porto Alegre is the capital and largest city of Brazil’s southernmost state, Rio Grande do Sul. With a population of 1.5 million inhabitants and approximately 450,000 real estate units in 1994, city officials estimated a shortfall of more than 50,000 residential properties. However, major economic and social problems limited the city’s ability to provide housing for low- and middle-income families.

As in many developing countries with unstable economic cycles, land is a major means of concentrating wealth in Brazilian cities. In Porto Alegre, the existence of large undeveloped sites near the city center contributes to urban sprawl on the periphery. The major factor responsible for this situation is land speculation by wealthy landowners who hold large vacant sites and wait for a favorable moment to undertake investments or to sell their sites at huge profits.

As low-income families are pushed to the periphery, their segregation leads to increased social exclusion and demands for public services. However, the provision of basic infrastructure, such as public transport services on the long routes between the periphery and the commercial, industrial and entertainment centers, requires large investments from the government.

City officals in Porto Alegre had set a primary goal to provide high quality urban services for the outlying community, including basic infrastructure, education, public transport, street cleaning and security services. However, a financial diagnosis of the city’s revenue alerted authorities to the scarcity of resources for such investment. In contrast, many districts in more central areas were well supplied with infrastructure, equipment and services, and they had lower population densities than were called for in the city’s urban development plan.

Speculation was clearly impeding land development, but officials believed the political atmosphere seemed favorable for change. After a period in which government authorities faced chronic inflation in Brazil, an economic stabilization program was introduced in July 1994. Before the economic plan, inflation was running at astonishing annual rates of 7,000 percent. Since the introduction of the plan, average rates of inflation ranged between 0.7 and 1.7 percent a month. When the economy was measured in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), it showed annual positive growth rates since 1993. Local government was confident that the moment was ideal for recovering the investment and productive activities that had been paralyzed during the previous high-inflation period.

In summary, the following factors encouraged Porto Alegre’s initiative to use the property tax as an instrument for simultaneously capturing increased land value, deterring land speculation, and promoting social fairness and economic growth:

• Stimulation of urban land occupation and development, since the private market was not responding positively to the demand from low- and middle-income residents.
• Reduction of the housing shortfall.
• Provision of assistance to low-income families, guaranteeing better living and working opportunities.
• Recovery of land value generated by public investment, by encouraging individuals who had been favored by public investment to return those benefits to the community.
• Avoidance of large additional investments in public infrastructure and services by applying financial resources rationally.

Government Actions

The Brazilian Constitution (1988) defines the property tax as a tax on urban land and buildings and specifies that it can be used as an instrument of urban policy to promote the rational use of land to generate social benefits to the community at large. This provision allowed Porto Alegre to undertake the following actions:

• Define priority urban zones for development and occupation. The process involved the selection of five distinct areas characterized by high-quality urban infrastructure, equipment and services. These areas would support a larger population density without any additional public investment.
• Identify 120 vacant sites ranging from 3,000 to 360,000 square metres (m2) in the priority zones.
• Introduce local legislation requiring the development of the selected properties within given time periods. The law established that if the periods specified for developing the sites were not met the property tax on those sites would be made progressive. The tax rate would be raised by 20 percent increments on an annual basis up to a maximum rate of 30 percent. The basic rates for vacant land vary from 5 to 6 percent of the property market value.
• Grant priority to construction projects on the designated sites. The City Council institutions responsible for planning permits would facilitate construction and occupation.

Effectiveness of the Initiative

The legislation was promulgated at the end of 1993 and the government started to implement it in 1994. The proposal was supported by both ruling and opposition party members of the City Council, which is responsible for approving decisions on matters of municipal legislation.

As of October 1997, the initiative has not yet achieved its desired results. Only five of the 120 vacant sites are being developed. The landowners of 50 properties are paying the property tax at the progressive rate. Three of the properties were removed from the list because they had been incorrectly included in the first place due to inaccurate records about their physical characteristics.

The development status of the remaining 62 properties has not been defined. Some are owned by wealthy and politically powerful landowners who appealed to the Supreme Court against the constitutionality of the measures undertaken by the city government. Indeed, two landowners (A and B) who hold nearly 44 percent of the vacant land are appealing, and other landowners seem to be waiting for the judiciary outcome to make their own decisions. (See chart.)

Evaluating the effectiveness of Porto Alegre’s property tax initiative will be possible only after the judiciary decisions on the matter are pronounced, but other crucial gains derived from the experience have already guaranteed its success. The legislation has generated intense debate at the national and local level regarding political and private rights, property rights and public interest. The experience has also been used as an example to make other government authorities aware of their responsibilities to promote the rational use of urban land.

In Brazil, cultural and economic factors still seem to encourage land speculation rather than productive activities, and the difficulty in establishing boundaries between public interest and private rights is, indeed, complex. However, the pioneering actions undertaken in Porto Alegre represent an important step towards controlling private speculation and promoting responsible urban development. Similar initiatives elsewhere now have a greater potential for becoming effective alternatives to achieve fairness in the distribution of public resources with favorable social benefits to the community.

Claudia M. De Cesare works for the Porto Alegre City Council and is a Ph.D. candidate at the Centre for the Built and Human Environment, University of Salford, England.

Local governments exercise greater land use authority in the United States than in any other advanced democracy. Yet local governments have themselves evolved piecemeal in the typical U.S. metropolitan area, producing a pattern of fragmented authority. Most notably, as metropolitan areas have exploded outward, the local government system has adapted mainly by creating new suburbs and single-function districts rather than by expanding the boundaries of existing central cities.

Illustratively, when Robert Wood studied the New York metropolitan region in the late 1950s, he counted roughly 1,400 local governments. When Jameson Doig and Michael Danielson examined the same region in the early 1980s, the number had grown to 2,200, of which more than 800 exercised land use regulatory authority.

Critics levy numerous charges against this system. Above all, they contend it invites parochialism and, in dealing with issues of regional scale, gridlock. These failings are particularly apparent when the potential ends of land use policy are controversial. But they are visible in many other circumstances as well—wherever, for example, there is substantial risk that the instruments of policy (from regional overrides of local zoning to the siting of new incinerators) will be highly controversial and no consensus has yet emerged about the severity of a crisis that might justify accepting such risk.

In other respects, however, the system is both adaptive and finely tuned to citizen desires. Numerous functions have been shifted from localities to regional authorities and higher levels of government in recent decades, yet the changes have been highly selective and incremental.

When broad agreement has emerged that a particular function—such as mass transit or environmental protection—requires decisionmaking and management at supra-local scale, the political leaders in many metropolitan areas have frequently crafted new institutional arrangements. They have typically defined the new institutions quite precisely, however, so as to avoid sapping local authority any more than necessary to deal with the specific problems that gave rise to the consensus for change. Where large numbers of voters still favor local control, moreover—as, preeminently, in the field of land use regulation—metropolitan-area political leaders have taken great care to avoid disturbing it.

To be sure, certain objectives are all but impossible to realize through this piecemeal, consensus-dependent mode of institutional adaptation (most notably, greater class and racial integration at regional scale, and prevention of urban sprawl). But others (e.g., the preservation of neighborhood character and vigorous grassroots democracy) are accomplished much more reliably than would be likely in a more “rationalized” system.

Balancing Communal and Individualistic Values

Controversies about this system invariably reflect a mix of conflicting interests and values. Since a considerable body of scholarship exists on the interests most commonly in dispute, let us concentrate here on the values.

Americans consider land use issues within the framework of two disparate ideologies: one communal and egalitarian, the other individualistic and disposed to leave distributional outcomes to the marketplace. In any given controversy, self-interested groups organize their briefs around aspects of one or the other of these ideologies. So it is easy to miss the crucial fact that both enjoy near-consensual support. Americans favor both private capitalism and government action to further collective values–each in its place. The disputes typically arise in situations where parties disagree about which ideology ought to take precedence or about how the differing ideological claims should be balanced.

The land use arena is chock full of such points. Ownership is private. Most development initiative is private. And tradition favors viewing land as a market commodity. But most human activities take place on land; the byproducts of land use profoundly affect every aspect of the human environment; and no one is an owner every place he or she goes. So everyone has a powerful stake in the preservation of some common spaces, in society’s rules for behavior in such spaces, and in some regulation of land use “overspill” effects.

Owners themselves, moreover, are eager for collective services. The value of urban real estate hinges critically on the availability and quality of such services, from highway access to public safety to education. In addition, neighborhood characteristics and the level of investor confidence in the neighborhood’s future profoundly affect real estate values. As a result, whether their aim is development or simply enjoyment of what they already have, property owners are drawn inevitably to the public realm.

Within the public realm, however, communal values–including the presumption of equal access to collective services regardless of income or wealth–predominate. This poses a severe problem for relatively affluent property owners who are reluctant to trigger wide egalitarian claims.

The fragmentation of metropolitan areas into independent suburbs, a problem for some, is for these voters a solution. It provides a means of confining the application of communal norms within relatively small population groups. And it makes available to such groups an instrument of extraordinary power for the pursuit and preservation of homogeneity: land use regulation.

Public Regulation vs Market Forces

Pressures have built in recent decades, nonetheless, for public land use action on a wider scale. Some of these pressures (e.g., for major infrastructure investments and for environmental protection) come largely from property owners themselves and do not pose much redistributive threat even when higher-level governments assume responsibility for action. Nearly all of the centralization that has occurred has been in response to pressures of this sort.

A second set of pressures for supra-local action has come primarily from less favored groups and their political representatives, seeking fiscal equalization and residential integration. There have been considerable shifts of money in response to these pressures. But resistance has been fierce to reforms that might force racial or class integration at the neighborhood level. With rare exceptions it has been successful.

The reform idea with the greatest apparent potential to override local land use parochialism would be a shift of some land use regulatory authority to the state level. Movement in this direction occurred in about one-quarter of the states during the 1970s and 1980s. Except in the notable cases of Oregon and Florida, however, the changes were slight, and the historic pattern of local land use autonomy remained firmly entrenched. Concerns about growth, moreover, rather than concerns about equality or integration drove these state land use reforms. Consequently, with weak real estate markets in the early 1990s interest in them has waned.

The question remains whether shifting land use authority from the local to the state level, if it does occur, will be likely to produce more egalitarian and integrationist outcomes than would the existing pattern of fragmented land use governance. One can plausibly argue that it will, stressing that egalitarian norms tend to prevail within (even if not between) U.S. public jurisdictions. Thinking of the immediate future, however, the likelihood is that such shifts will be rare and that, even when they occur, their egalitarian impacts will be meager.

For better or worse, the overwhelming trend of the 1990s, at all levels of government, is toward greater market deference rather than more vigorous public action to achieve redistributive objectives.

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Alan Altshuler is professor in urban policy and planning and director of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. He is also a faculty associate of the Lincoln Institute, which distributes several of his publications. This article is reprinted with permission from the 1995-96 Annual Report of the Taubman Center.

In June 2002, about 300 urban design practitioners, writers, ecologists, grassroots activists and students gathered in New York City for “The Humane Metropolis: People and Nature in the 21st Century—A Symposium to Celebrate and Continue the Work of William H. Whyte.” The Ecological Cities Project at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, organized the event with a grant from the Lincoln Institute and additional support from the Wyomissing Foundation, the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, and Laurance S. Rockefeller, a longtime friend and supporter of Whyte’s work.

The symposium was held at the New York University Law School in consultation with NYU faculty, representatives of organizations and programs that continue Whyte’s work, including the Regional Plan Association, Project for Public Spaces, the Municipal Art Society, Trust for Public Land, and the Chicago Openlands Project, and with his widow, Jenny Bell Whyte, and their daughter, Alexandra Whyte. The University of Pennsylvania Press released a new edition of Whyte’s 1956 classic study of postwar suburbia, The Organization Man, at the symposium reception.

William H. “Holly” Whyte (1917-1999) was one of America’s most influential and respected commentators on cities, people and open spaces. Through his writings, particularly The Organization Man (1956), The Last Landscape (1968), and City: Rediscovering the Center (1988), he taught a generation of urban designers to view cities as habitats for people, rather than simply as economic machines, transportation nodes, or grandiose architectural stage-sets. As the United States approaches 300 million residents, of whom four-fifths live in cities or suburbs, Whyte’s vision of people-centered urban communities has never been needed more. And it seems safe to assume that this vision would today also incorporate recent insights on urban ecology and sustainability, in short a symbiosis of people and nature.

“The Man Who Loved Cities”

Norman Glazer (1999) described Holly Whyte as “The man who loved cities . . . one of America’s most influential observers of the city and the space around it . . .” Whyte gloried in parks, plazas, sidewalks and other pedestrian spaces that invite schmoozing (a Yiddish term he popularized) or simply encountering other people. Conversely, he deplored urban sprawl (apparently his term), particularly the waste of land, ugliness and isolation of tract development on the urban fringe. I stated in opening remarks the overriding premise of both the symposium and the book to follow:

Contrary to the trend toward privatization, security and “gatedness” so well documented by Dean Blakely [Blakely and Snyder 1997], twenty-first-century America needs a strong dose of Holly Whyte; namely, we need to rediscover the humanizing influence of urban shared spaces. “The Humane Metropolis” for present purposes means urban places that are “more green, more people-friendly, and more socially equitable.”

A native of the Brandywine Valley in eastern Pennsylvania, William H. Whyte, Jr., graduated from Princeton in 1939 and fought at Guadalcanal as an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps. Shortly after the war, he joined the editorial staff of Fortune magazine in New York, where he began to examine the culture, life style and residential milieu of postwar suburbia, leading to his 1956 classic The Organization Man. Among other findings, this book argued that the spatial layout of homes, parking, yards and common spaces is a key factor in promoting or inhibiting social contacts, helping to account for patterns of friendships versus isolation. Thus began a lifetime career devoted to better understanding how people interact in shared or common spaces.

Appalled by rapid development of his beloved Brandywine Valley, Whyte in 1958 co-organized an urban land use roundtable, jointly hosted by Fortune and Architectural Review, which attracted a who’s who of urban planners, economists and lawyers. His subsequent essay on “Urban Sprawl” added both a new term and a sense of urgency to the conversion of rural land for suburban development (Whyte 1957a).

But open space per se is not a panacea. In The Exploding Metropolis (Editors of Fortune 1957), Whyte and Jane Jacobs excoriated urban renewal programs that placed high-rise structures in the midst of amorphous open spaces modeled on Le Corbusier’s Ville Radieuse. In Whyte’s words: “The scale of the projects is uncongenial to the human being. The use of the open space is revealing; usually it consists of manicured green areas carefully chained off lest they be profaned, and sometimes, in addition, a big central mall so vast and abstract as to be vaguely oppressive. There is nothing close for the eye to light on, no sense of intimacy or of things being on a human scale” (Whyte 1957b, 21). And as Jane Jacobs observed in her 1961 classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities, without streets and street life, projects are dangerous as well as boring (and all that green grass was soon covered with old cars).

Whyte left Fortune in 1959 to pursue a broader array of urban projects. His first technical publication on Conservation Easements (1959) became the model for open space statutes in California, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Maryland. In the early 1960s, he served as a consultant to the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission, for which he prepared a 60-page report on Open Space Action (1962). His association with the Commission’s chair, Laurance S. Rockefeller, led to his role as a one-man think tank on urban land problems with the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which provided him with an office in Rockefeller Center. Whyte also was a member of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Task Force on Natural Beauty and chaired Governor Nelson Rockefeller’s Conference on Natural Beauty in New York. At the invitation of Donald Elliott, then chair of the New York City Plan Commission, Whyte wrote much of the 1969 Plan for New York City, which was acclaimed by The New York Times and the American Society of Planning Officials (Birch 1986). He also advised the city on revisions to its zoning ordinance, leading to improvement of public spaces established by private developers in exchange for density bonuses (Kayden 2000).

The turbulent year of 1968 yielded three environmental literary milestones: Ian McHarg’s Design with Nature, Garret Hardin’s “The Tragedy of the Commons,” and Holly Whyte’s The Last Landscape. The latter was Whyte’s “bible” for the fast-spreading movement to save open space in metropolitan America. Open space was to the conservationists of the 1960s what anti-congestion was to early twentieth-century progressives, and sustainability and smart growth are to environmentalists today. Whyte’s book embraced a variety of negative effects of poorly planned development, such as loss of prime farmland, inadequate recreation space, urban flooding, pollution of surface and groundwater, aesthetic blight, diminished sense of place, and isolation from nature. The Last Landscape confronted each of these and offered a legal toolbox to combat them, including cluster zoning, conservation easements, greenbelts, scenic roads, tax abatements and so on.

Whyte’s fascination with the social functions of urban space was the focus of his Street Life Project, a long-term study sponsored by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Based at Hunter College in Manhattan, where he served as distinguished professor of urban sociology, the project documented social activity in public spaces through interviews, mapping, diagrams and film. That research underlay Whyte’s 1980 book and film titled The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces and his 1988 capstone book, City: Rediscovering the Center.

From Park Forest in the 1950s to New York City in the 1980s, Whyte was a diehard urban environmental determinist. He believed that the design of shared spaces greatly affects the interaction of people who encounter each other in those spaces, and their resulting sense of well-being or discomfort in urban surroundings. This in turn helps to shape the success of cities and suburbs as congenial or alien environments for the millions who inhabit them. Paul Goldberger, architectural critic for The New Yorker, writes in his Foreword to The Essential William H. Whyte (LaFarge 2000):

His objective research on the city, on open space, on the way people use it, was set within what I think I must call a moral context. Holly believed with deep passion that there was such a thing as quality of life, and the way we build cities, the way we make places, can have a profound effect on what lives are lived within those places.

Celebrating and Continuing Holly Whyte’s Work

A major goal of the symposium was to revisit Holly Whyte’s work, which anticipated many of the ideas behind smart growth and new urbanism, and reintroduce him to a younger generation of planners and urbanists. This goal was accomplished during the opening sessions through personal tributes by friends and family (Donald Elliott, Amanda Burden, Fred Kent, Eugenie Birch, Lynden B. Miller and Alexandra Whyte) and fellow urban writers (Charles E. Little, Paul Goldberger and Tony Hiss). Planners Frank and Deborah Popper and environmental historian Adam Rome offered perspectives on Holly as viewed from the twenty-first century. A second goal was to trace the influence of his work in contemporary efforts to make cities and suburbs more livable and more humane, which was accomplished through an address by Carl Anthony of The Ford Foundation, and his introduction by Robert Yaro of the Regional Plan Association. Subsequent sessions, both plenary and concurrent, reviewed a variety of initiatives in New York City and around the nation that carry on the spirit of Holly Whyte. Session topics included:

• Protecting Regional “Last Landscapes”
• Urban Livability
• Ecological Restoration: Practice and Ethics
• Green Design in the Built Environment
• Regreening Older Neighborhoods
• Green Infrastructure of Greater New York
• Urban Environmental Education
• Privately-Owned Public Spaces
• What Makes a Great City Park System?
• Green Urbanism in European Cities

Some of these topics departed somewhat from Whyte’s own areas of focus, but the organizers felt that he would have applauded the inclusiveness of our agenda. He no doubt would have added many topics, such as urban gardens, green roofs, brownfield reuse and ecological restoration, if he were here to write a sequel to The Last Landscape today. In particular, no appraisal of current approaches to making cities more humane would be adequate if it failed to consider issues of social justice in relation to urban sprawl and inner-city land use or abuse.

Next Steps

The symposium deliberately closed without the usual “Where do we go from here?” session, but the next major task is to produce an edited volume of selected papers presented at the symposium, and possibly a film. We hope “The Humane Metropolis” (symposium and book) will provide a template for regional symposia in other cities and metropolitan regions of the U.S. These could be locally funded and planned with guidance as requested from the Ecological Cities Project and its allies across the country.

An elusive but critical function of events like “The Humane Metropolis” is the energizing of participants through sharing of experience and specialized knowledge. Feedback from speakers and attendees indicates the symposium stimulated new contacts among participants from different disciplines and geographic regions. In particular, it seems to have well served a key goal of the Ecological Cities Project, to promote dialogue between urbanists and natural scientists. According to Peter Harnik, director of Trust for Public Land’s Green Cities Program, “You are on the cutting edge of an up-and-coming topic that is given almost no attention by anyone else—since urban experts rarely talk about nature, and conservationists virtually never talk about cities.” As the consummate synthesizer of things urban, Holly Whyte should be beaming with approval.

Rutherford H. Platt is director of the Ecological Cities Project at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and organizer of the symposium and related activities. The full list of speakers and other information about the symposium may be found at http://www.ecologicalcities.org.

References

Birch, E. L. 1986. The Observation Man. Planning (March): 4-8.

Blakely, E. J. and M. G. Snyder. 1997. Fortress America: Gated Communities in the United States. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press and Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Daily, G C., ed. 1997. Nature’s Services: Societal Dependence on Natural Systems. Washington, DC: Island Press.

Editors of Fortune, 1957. The Exploding Metropolis. Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor.

Glazer, N. 1999. The Man Who Loved Cities. The Wilson Quarterly (Spring) 23(2): 27-34.

Hardin, G. 1968. The Tragedy of the Commons. Science 162: 1243-1248.

Jacobs, J. 1961. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Random House Vintage.

Kayden, J. 2000. Privately Owned Public Space: The New York City Experience. New York: Wiley.

LaFarge, A., Ed. 2000. The Essential William H. Whyte. New York: Fordham University Press.

McHarg, I. 1968. Design with Nature. New York: Garden City Press.

Whyte, W. H. 1956. The Organization Man. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Republished in 2002 by the University of Pennsylvania Press.

_____. 1957a. Urban Sprawl in Editors of Fortune, The Exploding Metropolis. Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor.

_____. 1957b. Are Cities Un-American? in Editors of Fortune, The Exploding Metropolis. Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor.

_____. 1959. Conservation Easements. Washington, DC: Urban Land Institute.

_____. 1962. Open Space Action. Study Report 15 prepared for the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission, Washington, DC.

_____. 1968. The Last Landscape. Garden City: Doubleday. Republished in 2001 by the University of Pennsylvania Press.

_____. 1980. The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces. Washington, DC: The Conservation Foundation. Reprinted by Project for Public Spaces, Inc.

_____. 1988. City: Rediscovering the Center. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.

(Picture of Holly White taken by Kelly Campbell)

Una versión más actualizada de este artículo está disponible como parte del capítulo 3 del libro Perspectivas urbanas: Temas críticos en políticas de suelo de América Latina.

América Latina es una región de marcados contrastes en cuanto al uso del suelo: la extensa selva del Amazonas y crecientes áreas de deforestación, grandes regiones despobladas y enormes concentraciones urbanas, la coexistencia de la riqueza y la pobreza en los mismos vecindarios. Muchos de estos contrastes derivan de las políticas de suelos establecidas por intereses poderosos que se han perpetuado gracias a registros desactualizados o distorsionados. Esta herencia es parte del proceso de colonización de la región que se ha caracterizado por la explotación y la ocupación de tierras a cualquier precio.

El primer sistema de información para el registro de parcelas de tierra en América Latina lo estableció en 1824 la Comisión Topográfica en la Provincia de Buenos Aires de la República Argentina. Las oficinas de catastro territorial en toda la región actualmente manejan sistemas de información sobre suelos públicos en los que se registran mapas y datos sobre los terrenos sujetos a impuestos y se otorgan derechos a los propietarios u ocupantes de la tierra.

¿Qué es un catastro?

Un catastro moderno es un sistema integrado de bases de datos que reúne la información sobre el registro y la propiedad del suelo, características físicas, modelo econométrico para la valoración de propiedades, zonificación, sistemas de información geográfica, transporte y datos ambientales, socioeconómicos y demográficos. Dichos catastros representan una herramienta holística de planificación que puede usarse a nivel local, regional y nacional con la finalidad de abordar problemas como el desarrollo económico, la propagación urbana, la erradicación de la pobreza, las políticas de suelo y el desarrollo comunitario sostenible.

Los primeros registros de agrimensura de propiedades en el antiguo Egipto utilizaron la ciencia de la geometría para medir las distancias. Más tarde los catastros europeos siguieron este modelo antiguo hasta que nuevos conocimientos dieron lugar a sistemas más integrados que podían usarse para fines fiscales, como la valoración, la tributación y las transferencias legales, así como la gestión del suelo y la planificación urbana. En los Estados Unidos no existe un sistema nacional de catastro, pero los procesos municipales semejantes son reflejo de la política y el protocolo de los programas internacionales de catastro.

La Federación Internacional de Agrimensores fue fundada en París en 1878 bajo el nombre de Fédération Internationale des Géomètres y se conoce por su acrónimo francés FIG. Esta organización no gubernamental reúne a más de 100 países y fomenta la colaboración internacional en materia de agrimensura mediante la obtención de datos de las características de la tierra sobre, en y bajo la superficie y su representación gráfica en forma de mapas, planos o modelos digitales. La FIG lleva a cabo su labor a través de 10 comisiones que se especializan en los diferentes aspectos de la agrimensura. La Comisión 7, Catastro y Manejo de Suelos, se concentra en los asuntos relacionados con la reforma catastral y catastros de usos múltiples, sistemas de información sobre suelos basados en parcelas, levantamientos catastrales y cartografía, titulación y tenencia de suelos y legislación sobre los suelos y registro. Para obtener más información, visite la página Web www.fig.net/figtree/commission7/.

Catastros multifuncionales

En años recientes, la visión del catastro como un sistema de información multifuncional ha comenzado a evolucionar y a producir grandes avances en la calidad de los sistemas de información sobre suelos, pero también algunos problemas. El origen de estas inquietudes puede hallarse en el concepto mismo de los sistemas de catastros multifinalitarios y en las decisiones administrativas que se necesitan para su implementación. Existe una noción frecuente según la cual para implementar un catastro multifuncional es necesario ampliar las bases de datos alfanuméricas –incluidos los datos sociales, ambientales y también físicos (ubicación y forma), aspectos económicos y jurídicos de la parcela– y vincular esta información a un mapa de parcelas en un sistema de información geográfica (SIG). Aunque es un paso importante, no es suficiente.

La implementación de un catastro multifuncional implica un cambio de paradigma para su administración y exige una nueva estructura de usos del suelo y nuevas relaciones entre los sectores público y privado. En 1996 Brasil ideó un Congreso Nacional sobre Catastro Multifuncional que se celebraría cada dos años para evaluar sus propios programas estatales de catastro y los programas de otros países vecinos. Pese a la atención dedicada a los catastros y los muchos artículos que se han publicado desde entonces sobre el tema, no hay indicios de ninguna municipalidad en la cual el sistema catastral multifuncional opere de la manera que se esperaba.

Según las publicaciones existentes, para que un catastro sea realmente multifuncional es necesario integrar todas las instituciones públicas y privadas que trabajan al nivel de parcelas con un identificador único y definir parámetros para las bases de datos alfanuméricas y cartográficas. Chile es uno de los países donde todas las parcelas tienen un identificador común designado por la implementación del Sistema Nacional de Información Territorial, aunque el sistema todavía no ha integrado los datos catastrales alfanuméricos con los mapas a nivel de parcelas (Hyman et al. 2003).

Centralización y descentralización

La hegemonía del sistema unitario de gobierno que caracteriza a la mayoría de los países latinoamericanos ha propiciado el predominio de catastros centralizados, si bien este fenómeno también ocurre en países con gobierno federal. Brasil, por ejemplo, recientemente reestructuró su Sistema Nacional de Catastro Rural, el cual, a pesar de los avances tecnológicos propuestos en la Ley 10.267/2001, continuará bajo la administración de una institución del gobierno nacional.

En contraste, el movimiento de descentralización en la región aspira modernizar los gobiernos estatales mediante la transferencia de poderes a las jurisdicciones municipales, lo que abarca las instituciones encargadas de la administración del suelo. Por ejemplo, más de la mitad de los estados de México aún tienen datos catastrales centralizados, aunque algunos han comenzado la descentralización creando sistemas municipales compatibles con el catastro estatal. Una situación similar ocurre en Argentina, donde algunas instituciones provinciales están comenzando a transferir sistemas y datos a las municipalidades. Los administradores locales tienen un incentivo adicional por asumir la responsabilidad de organizar y mantener los sistemas catastrales debido a las oportunidades para recaudar impuestos sobre la propiedad y vender mapas o bases de datos registrados en el sistema catastral local a las compañías de servicios públicos y demás entidades del sector privado.

Sin embargo, todas estas buenas intenciones a menudo se tropiezan con el problema crónico de la escasez de personal capacitado e infraestructura. En algunos casos la descentralización puede constituir un problema más que una solución y podría poner en riesgo el mantenimiento y validación de la información. Por ejemplo, la adopción del modelo descentralizado puede conducir a la coexistencia de catastros sumamente detallados y precisos en algunos lugares y catastros casi inexistentes en otros. Tales discrepancias entre municipalidades vecinas pueden dar lugar a incongruencias cuando se incorpora la información sobre el suelo a nivel regional y nacional.

Por otra parte, un modelo centralizado puede facilitar la unificación del diseño y la estructura del catastro y garantizar la integración de sistemas geodésicos y cartográficos con la identificación de parcelas. Las dificultades de acceso y distribución de la información para satisfacer necesidades locales podrían resolverse usando Internet para organizar los datos y mapas a través de un catastro central. Algunos países, como Jamaica, Chile y Uruguay, comienzan a adoptar este enfoque para estructurar sus catastros en forma electrónica (llamados e-catastros, término derivado del concepto de eGovernment -administración electrónica- introducido por el Banco Mundial).

Al considerar las distintas etapas de desarrollo de los catastros en América Latina, podemos concluir que cada jurisdicción está obligada a analizar qué tipo de sistema resulta más adecuado para sus circunstancias particulares. Vale la pena considerar los Principios Comunes del Catastro en la Unión Europea, un documento que afirma que “no hay intención de unificar los sistemas catastrales de los Estados miembros; no obstante, si existe interés en estandarizar los productos” (Comité Permanente, 2003). Si es posible trabajar con sistemas catastrales diferentes en toda Europa, debe ser posible hacerlo en un mismo país.

Catastros públicos y catastros privados

Después de la publicación del Catastro 2014 de la Federación Internacional de Agrimensores (FIG), una de las nuevas visiones que suscitó mucho debate fue la propuesta de que el catastro debiera estar “altamente privatizado; el sector público y el sector privado trabajarán en conjunto, lo que reducirá el control y la supervisión por parte del sector público” (Kaufmann y Steudler 1998). Por ejemplo, en Japón las empresas privadas tienen el control prácticamente total de la base catastral de algunas ciudades, mientras que en los Estados miembros de la Unión Europea el catastro reside en la esfera gubernamental.

En América Latina los catastros se mantienen principalmente en manos de instituciones públicas; el sector privado por lo general participa en los procesos de implementación de actualizaciones cartográficas y sistemas de información, más no en la administración misma. La municipalidad mexicana de Guadalajara, por ejemplo, realizó un estudio comparativo de los costos y concluyó que el manejo del catastro con sus propios empleados y equipos significaría un ahorro del 50% en inversiones, lo que quedó confirmado un año después de la implementación.

Pese a los resultados positivos obtenidos en dichos proyectos desarrollados por completo dentro de la administración pública, no es posible dejar de lado al sector privado, especialmente en el contexto de la ola de privatización que ha sacudido a América Latina estos últimos años. Por ejemplo, al igual que las instituciones públicas, las compañías de teléfono, agua y energía eléctrica necesitan información territorial actualizada. El interés en común por mantener al día las bases de datos hace que las oficinas de catastro y las compañías de servicios públicos trabajen en colaboración y se repartan las inversiones, además de buscar maneras de estandarizar la información y definir identificadores comunes para las parcelas.

Conclusiones

La mayoría de los sistemas catastrales de América Latina siguen registrando tres tipos de datos según el modelo económico-físico-legal tradicional: el valor económico, la ubicación y forma de la parcela y la relación entre la propiedad y el propietario u ocupante. No obstante, existe un mayor interés en utilizar sistemas de información multifinalitarios. En este proceso de transición, algunos administradores han decidido implementar nuevas aplicaciones catastrales basadas en la tecnología, pero es evidente que no se ha logrado el éxito que ellos anticipaban. Esta incorporación de nuevas tecnologías debe estar acompañada de los cambios necesarios en los procedimientos y la legislación y de capacitación profesional de los empleados públicos.

En años recientes ciertas instituciones internacionales como el Banco Mundial, el Instituto Lincoln y muchas universidades europeas y estadounidenses han prestado su colaboración para ayudar a mejorar los catastros latinoamericanos. Ofrecen apoyo para programas educativos, actividades académicas y proyectos concretos con la finalidad de implementar sistemas de información territoriales que sean confiables y estén actualizados. A medida que continúa la transición hacia catastros multifinalitarios, se implementarán los cambios a través de una revisión minuciosa de la legislación pertinente, formas más accesibles de servicio a los usuarios, colaboración sólida entre las instituciones públicas y privadas que generen y utilicen datos catastrales, y la aplicación de estándares internacionales contemporáneos. Los catastros territoriales en América Latina llegarán a ser todavía más eficaces y útiles si generan información que propicie el desarrollo de proyectos orientados a las preocupaciones sociales fundamentales, como la regulación del suelo y la identificación de terrenos desocupados.

Diego Alfonso Erba es profesor de aplicaciones avanzadas de SIG y cartografía digital en la UNISINOS (Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos) en São Leopoldo-RS, Brasil, y docente invitado del Instituto Lincoln.

Referencias

Hyman, Glenn, Perea, Claudia, Rey, Dora Inés y Lance, Kate. 2003. Encuesta sobre el desarrollo de las infraestructuras nacionales de datos espaciales en América Latina y el Caribe. Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT).

Kaufmann, Jürg y Steudler, Daniel. 1998. Catastro 2014: Una visión para un sistema catastral futuro.

Frederiksberg, Dinamarca: Federación Internacional de Agrimensores (FIG). Documento disponible en la página http://www.swisstopo.ch/fig-wg71/cad2014/download/cat2014-espanol.pdf.

Comité Permanente sobre el Catastro en la Unión Europea. 2003. Principios Comunes del Catastro en la Unión en la Unión Europea. Roma. 3 de diciembre. Documento disponible en la página http://www.eurocadastre.org/pdf/Principles%20in%20Spanish.pdf.

Una versión más actualizada de este artículo está disponible como parte del capítulo 7 del CD-ROM Perspectivas urbanas: Temas críticos en políticas de suelo de América Latina.

Diego Alfonso Erba es un profesor invitado del Lincoln Institute of Land Policy (Instituto Lincoln de Políticas de Suelo), con licencia de su cargo de profesor del Programa de Graduados de Geología de la Universidade do Vale do Río dos Sinos (UNISINOS) de Brasil. Se graduó de ingeniero agrimensor en la Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Argentina, y después obtuvo dos títulos de maestría en ciencias y enseñó en varias universidades de Brasil. Su experiencia profesional inicial fue en la regularización de los asentamientos informales de Santa Fe, Argentina, y encabezó el Departamento de Sistemas de Información Geológica (SIG) de una cooperativa agrícola del sur de Brasil. También obtuvo un doctorado en agrimensura de la Universidad Nacional de Catamarca, Argentina, e hizo investigaciones posdoctorales en SIG para cuerpos de agua en el Centro de Recursos Naturales de la Universidad Shiga de Otsu, Japón; y en SIG para aplicaciones urbanas en los Laboratorios Clark-IDRISI de la Universidad Clark de Worcester, Massachusetts.

Land Lines: ¿Qué es un catastro territorial?

Diego Erba: La institución del catastro territorial no existe en los Estados Unidos, por lo menos no de la misma forma que en muchos otros países del mundo. Si bien el término “catastro” tiene más de un significado, en general hay consenso de que proviene del griego catastichon, que se puede traducir como “una lista de parcelas tributarias”.

Este tipo de lista existe en los Estados Unidos, pero el perfil de las instituciones que manejan estos datos no es el mismo que en América Latina y muchos otros países europeos y africanos, donde el catastro territorial incluye datos económicos, geométricos y legales de las parcelas de tierra, además de datos sobre sus dueños u ocupantes. Las instituciones que manejan estos datos, con frecuencia también llamadas catastros territoriales, están estrechamente conectadas con los registros de títulos o los registros de propiedades, porque sus datos se complementan y garantizan el derecho a la tenencia de la tierra. Estas conexiones tradicionales reflejan la herencia catastral histórica de los sistemas legales romano y napoleónico.

Land Lines: ¿Por qué los administradores públicos urbanos necesitan saber sobre los catastros territoriales?

DE: El catastro y el registro de propiedades deberían estar conectados por razones legales − y además con fines prácticos − y hay muchos modelos que demuestran cómo los catastros podrían o deberían estar relacionados con las instituciones públicas. Desafortunadamente, en general los catastros de las distintas regiones están aislados o no están integrados, lo cual reduce mucho su utilidad potencial como herramienta para la planificación urbana y las políticas de suelo.

Por ejemplo, los asentamientos irregulares en general se construyen en áreas públicas o de protección ambiental, o incluso en parcelas privadas, y no pagan impuestos ni están inscritos en las bases de datos de los catastros territoriales. Estas áreas se representan en la cartografía catastral como “polígonos en blanco”, como si no existiera nada dentro de ellos. La paradoja es que en general se poseen datos e información cartográfica sobre estos asentamientos irregulares, pero la información se encuentra frecuentemente en instituciones que no están relacionadas con el catastro, y por lo tanto estos asentamientos no están oficialmente registrados.

Hay una percepción creciente de la importancia del catastro como sistema de información multifinalitario: que sirve no sólo a los sectores legales y financieros de una ciudad, sino también a todas las instituciones que conforman la “realidad urbana”, como las agencias de servicios públicos, las compañías de servicios públicos e incluso ciertos proveedores privados de servicios urbanos. No obstante, esta evolución hacia un concepto nuevo, y hacia sistemas de información urbana mejorados, no ha sido sencilla, y se ha topado con resistencias en los países en desarrollo.

Land Lines: ¿Por qué es tan difícil establecer y usar un catastro multifinalitario?

DE: La implementación de un catastro multifinalitario exige en general un mayor intercambio horizontal de información entre las instituciones gubernamentales. A menudo, también exige una modificación del marco legal y el establecimiento de relaciones más fluidas entre agentes públicos y privados, para poder compartir datos estandarizados y asegurar las inversiones constantes necesarias para mantener actualizadas las bases de datos y la cartografía.

Esto parece ser un proceso sencillo, pero en la práctica no lo es, porque muchos administradores todavía consideran que “esos datos son míos” y no están dispuestos a colaborar con otros. Al mismo tiempo, algunos administradores demasiado entusiastas, convencidos del valor potencial de un catastro multifinalitario, a veces se saltan etapas y pasan de un catastro tradicional a un modelo multifinalitario, sin prestar demasiada atención a la implementación efectiva de los intercambios de información.

Aun cuando operen en forma privada, los catastros territoriales se consideran como un servicio público, así que dependen del financiamiento público y de decisiones políticas para aprobar un nuevo sistema de valuación de la tierra o la cartografía. Al mismo tiempo, este tipo de servicio público no es visible y por lo tanto no es tan interesante para los políticos, que quieren demostrar sus logros por medio de proyectos más tangibles, como un puente o una escuela nueva.

La actualización de los datos catastrales afecta el valor de la tierra y consecuentemente el monto de los impuestos sobre la propiedad, un tema que no es popular con los votantes. No obstante, los administradores gubernamentales que desean mejorar el estado tributario de su jurisdicción pueden decidir al principio de su mandato que quieren actualizar el catastro para tratar de aumentar los ingresos provenientes de los impuestos sobre la propiedad. Esto tiene un impacto político significativo al comenzar su mandato, pero es posible que de allí en más no se alteren los datos del valor de la propiedad por muchos años, resultando cada vez menos precisos en comparación con su valor real de mercado. En muchas jurisdicciones latinoamericanas, la legislación impone la obligación de actualizar el catastro en forma periódica, aunque el nivel de cumplimiento no es homogéneo.

Otro error frecuente es considerar que la solución estriba en crear un sistema de información geográfica (SIG) para manejar los datos catastrales. En el caso ideal, nos gustaría ver sistemas integrados que usan bases de datos coordinadas y estandarizadas. Sin embargo, algunas municipalidades no tienen los recursos suficientes, y aquéllas que los tienen no cuentan con empleados con la preparación suficiente como para realizar la tarea. La noción de que se puede arribar a una manera única de implementar catastros no es realmente práctica en regiones donde las diferencias entre jurisdicciones son tan significativas. Yo siempre digo que el problema con las instituciones catastrales no es de recursos físicos ni de recursos de software, sino de recursos humanos. Aun cuando existan los recursos financieros, la falta de profesionales y técnicos capacitados presenta un obstáculo significativo.

Land Lines: En este contexto, ¿es posible considerar un catastro multifinalitario para América Latina?

DE: Es posible, pero el concepto es todavía nuevo y no se comprende por completo. Hay muchos buenos catastros en América Latina, por ejemplo en algunas municipalidades de Colombia y Brasil y en algunos estados de México y Argentina. En algunas jurisdicciones, la fusión de catastros territoriales con instituciones públicas y sistemas geotecnológicos genera institutos catastrales que están mejor estructurados en términos de presupuesto y personal técnico, y por lo tanto pueden identificar mejor los asentamientos ilegales y controlar el aumento del valor de la tierra usando herramientas modernas.

No obstante, desde mi punto de vista, la región aún no cuenta con un catastro multifinalitario en plena operación. Una suposición común es que la implementación de un catastro multifinalitario exige el agregado de datos sociales y ambientales a las bases de datos alfanuméricas existentes de los catastros territoriales tradicionales, para tener en cuenta los aspectos económicos, geométricos y legales de la parcela y después conectar todos los datos con un mapa de parcela en SIG. Si bien esto es muy importante, no es esencial, porque la implementación no es tanto un problema tecnológico como filosófico. La mayoría de las administraciones municipales se resisten a combinar instituciones que tradicionalmente manejan bases de datos sociales (educación y salud), del medio ambiente y territoriales (catastros) bajo el mismo techo.

Land Lines: ¿Cómo ayuda su trabajo en el Instituto Lincoln a ampliar el nivel de conocimiento sobre los catastros territoriales?

DE: He estado trabajando con el Programa para América Latina y el Caribe desde 2002, para explorar la relación entre los catastros multifinalitarios y las cuatro áreas temáticas del Programa: grandes proyectos urbanos; valuación y tributación de la tierra; asentamientos informales y programas de regularización; y recuperación de plusvalías. Es siempre un desafío adaptar los programas de estudio educativos, pero creemos firmemente que es importante compartir los conocimientos de manera amplia en cada país y preparar a los funcionarios públicos y a los técnicos con distintos niveles de experiencia. Los participantes en nuestros programas académicos, que incluyen a administradores de catastro, planificadores urbanos, abogados y emprendedores inmobiliarios, adoptan un lenguaje y una visión común de las aplicaciones catastrales urbanas, y pueden iniciar un proceso para mejorar el sistema en sus propios países.

Nuestra estrategia pedagógica para este año incluye la diseminación de conocimientos por medio de una combinación de educación a distancia y cursos tradicionales en el aula a distintos niveles. Tenemos pensado desarrollar seminarios de capacitación, seguidos de un curso de educación a distancia adaptado a aquellos países que demuestren las condiciones necesarias para concretar esta nueva visión de un catastro multifinalitario. Finalmente, organizaremos una clase regional en el aula para los mejores estudiantes a distancia en tres países vecinos.

Este plan contrasta con los múltiples programas de capacitación ofrecidos por otras instituciones internacionales, que contemplan conceptos y el uso de herramientas que pueden no ser aplicables en países con distintos marcos legales y niveles tecnológicos. Comenzaremos este ciclo con seminarios en Chile y Perú, trabajando con la Asociación Chilena de Municipalidades y el Instituto de Economía Regional y Gobierno Local en Arequipa, Perú. Éstos y otros socios en América Latina se han comprometido a difundir y aumentar la capacidad local sobre estos temas.

Otro componente de nuestra estrategia es la difusión de materiales didácticos. Más adelante en 2006, publicaremos dos libros sobre conceptos e implementación de catastros que se pueden aplicar a la mayoría de los países. Uno de los libros describe en detalle el sistema catastral de cada país latinoamericano, y el otro conceptualiza los aspectos jurídicos, económicos, geométricos, ambientales y sociales del catastro multifinalitario, realzando la relación entre el catastro territorial y las cuatro áreas temáticas del Programa para América Latina y el Caribe del Instituto Lincoln.

En 2005 produjimos un DVD, que en la actualidad se ofrece en español y portugués. Incluye un documental sobre catastros multifinalitario y algunos segmentos grabados de clases y discusiones sobre las relaciones entre el catastro multifinalitario y asuntos urbanos complejos.

Land Lines: ¿Cuál es el objetivo a largo plazo del catastro multifinalitario?

DE: Los problemas que se han señalado aquí no deberían desalentar el esfuerzo de los administradores urbanos por reorganizar sus catastros y el marco legal de sus políticas de la tierra en sus respectivos ciudades y países. Por el contrario, deberían tratar de cambiar esta realidad desarrollando nuevas leyes que demuestren el espíritu de una política del suelo moderna. Los datos sobre ciudades latinoamericanas existen, pero están fragmentados y no están estandarizados.

La mejor manera de construir un catastro multifinalitario es integrando todas las instituciones públicas y privadas que están trabajando a nivel de parcela, y desarrollando un identificador único que defina las normas para las bases de datos alfanuméricas y cartográficas. El concepto es muy simple y claro, pero su ejecución no lo es. Para alcanzar este objetivo es necesario que los administradores, técnicos y ciudadanos comprendan el potencial del catastro para mejorar las prácticas de gestión de la tierra y la calidad de vida en zonas urbanas. Muchas veces hay soluciones simples que ayudan a resolver problemas complejos como los presentados por los sistemas catastrales.

Although vast differences in standard of living exist among the native-born residents of Chinese cities, the distinction between all urban natives and rural migrants runs deeper. It is, in fact, the fundamental social division in Chinese cities for several reasons, including labor market segmentation that sees migrants doing dirty, dangerous, and low-paying work; institutional rules that favor urban residents in everything from health care access to university entrance exams; and cultural ideas about the backwardness of rural areas and rural people.

In the housing sector, it is therefore not surprising that migrants’ housing quality is quite low in an absolute sense and relative to that of other urban residents. What is less clear is the source of these differences. Research that we recently completed for the Lincoln Institute leads us to question the conventional wisdom that institutional rules linked to the hukou system are primarily responsible for the differential (Li, Duda, and Peng 2007). We believe that hukou status is only one of several factors responsible for migrants’ differential housing outcomes, and that the research literature has not spent enough time assessing the relative importance of these factors. While not definitive, our empirical results provide several reasons to question a hukou-centric modelof the sources of urban housing inequality.

Canfei He earned his Ph.D. degree in geography from Arizona State University in 2001, and then moved to the University of Memphis, Tennessee, where he taught as an assistant professor. In August 2003, he returned to China as an associate professor in Peking University’s College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, and was promoted to full professor in 2009. In addition to his academic duties at Peking University, Dr. He has served as associate director of the Peking University–Lincoln Institute Center for Urban Development and Land Policy since 2007. He is also the associate director of the Economic Geography Specialty Group of the China Geographical Society.

Dr. He’s research interests include multinational corporations, industrial location and spatial clustering of firms, and energy and the environment in China. The World Bank invited him to write a background paper on industrial agglomeration in China for the World Development Report 2009: Reshaping Global Economic Geography.

Dr. He has authored four academic books and his work is published widely in English journals including Regional Studies, Urban Studies, Annals of Regional Science, International Migration Review, Eurasian Geography and Economics, Post-Communist Economies, and China & the World Economy. Dr. He also serves on the editorial board of three journals: Eurasian Geography and Economics, International Urban Planning, and China Regional Economics.

Land Lines: How did you become associated with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and its programs in China?

Canfei He: I learned about the activities of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy’s recently established China Program from one of my colleagues at Peking University in 2003soon after I returned from the United States. At that time, the Lincoln Institute was working in China on a number of specific programs, and I became involved in several associated research projects.

My official relationship with the Institute began with the establishment of the Peking University–Lincoln Institute Center for Urban Development and Land Policy (PLC) in October 2007. The Institute had been exploring a more long-term partnership with Peking University for some time, and as those discussions progressed, my previous contacts offered opportunities for me to serve as a liaison between the two institutions. I was nominated by Peking University to serve as the associate director with its director, Joyce Yanyun Man, who is also a senior fellow of the Lincoln Institute and director of its Program on the People’s Republic of China. Over the past two years or more, I have been helping to develop the center and coordinate its work with other partners at Peking University, as well as serving as a research fellow of the center.

Land Lines: Why are urban development studies so important in China?

Canfei He: China’s urbanization during the past three decades has been remarkable. As an overwhelmingly rural population in 1978 when reforms began, China is now 45.7 percent urbanized, and the country is projected to be 60 percent urbanized by 2020. This means that China’s cities will need to accommodate more than 100 million new urban residents in this decade.

Market forces, local forces, and global forces are all conspiring to influence the pattern of China’s urbanization and development. Accompanying large-scale and rapid urbanization are revolutionary spatial, structural, industrial, institutional, and environmental changes in an incredibly brief span of time. The multiplicity of these driving forces makes the study of urban development in China both complex and challenging. The next wave of urbanization will have far-reaching implications for the country’s future development, and thus there is a critical need for more high-quality, objective research on the subject.

Land Lines: What are some of the most unusual aspects of urban development in China?

Canfei He: China’s current urban development is quite different institutionally from that of most Western countries. Urbanization in China has occurred at the same time that its economy has become market-oriented, globalized, and decentralized. Whereas most Western urbanization occurred in a period of greater economic isolation, China’s urban development has been directly influenced by international investment and global economic trends.

A second factor is China’s hukou system of personal registration that limits the mobility of its people in part by linking their access to social services to the location of their registration. This system thus presents an institutional barrier that inhibits rural-urban migration despite ongoing reforms.

Regional decentralization is another important aspect that, combined with the state and collective ownership of land, has allowed local governments to play a distinct role in China’s urban development. Land acquisition fees resulting from the sale of multi-decade leases for the use and development of state-owned lands have generated enormous revenues, and have been a critical source of municipal financial resources for urban infrastructure investment. This fee-based revenue, in turn, creates incentives that have promoted even more intense urbanization. On the other hand, the major planning role afforded to local governments in China means that urban planning practice lacks consistency across the country’s diverse regions, and is often hostage to local interest groups.

China is facing increasing global challenges and pressures from many sources including multinational corporations, nongovernmental organizations, global environmental standards, and rising energy prices. These challenges may increase the costs of urban development, but at the same time they may encourage a more sustainable process of urbanization.

Land Lines: How do you approach urban development studies in China through your own research?

Canfei He: China’s urbanization goes hand in hand with its industrialization, and foreign investment has played a significant role in the country’s growth. Urbanization demands labor, land, capital, and technology, as well as supporting institutions. Consequently, there are myriad approaches to studying urban development in China that focus on a particular factor or set of factors.

My own research interests fall within the capital and institutional approaches. Specifically, I investigate industrial agglomeration and foreign direct investment in Chinese cities by highlighting the institutional environment of economic transition. Investigating the elements driving industrial agglomeration in different cities and understanding the locational preferences of foreign and domestic firms are crucial for designing coherent and focused urban planning policies.

For instance, my research on foreign direct investment in real estate development and the locational preferences of international banks found that local market conditions and regional institutions largely determine the locational preferences of multinational services. This type of observation can be of use to planners and politicians in China seeking to foster the growth of the service industry.

With the increasing emphasis on global climate change and acknowledgement of the environmental impacts of China’s first 30 years of reform and development, I am also becoming more involved in research on the environmental impacts of urbanization, including energy consumption and carbon emissions. China has made a commitment to reduce its CO₂ emission by 40–45 percent per unit of GDP by 2020, relative to 2005. This means that building low-carbon and energy-efficient cities is another goal on the already lengthy list of challenges that includes servicing, housing, and employing the country’s millions of future urban dwellers.

Land Lines: Given this ongoing international dialogue, how can China best learn from Western urbanization experiences?

Canfei He: We recognize that there is much to learn from the West, including alternative approaches to land policy, housing policy, transportation policy, environmental policy, suburbanization, and the development and planning of megacity regions. China has the benefit of using the West’s experience as a roadmap to help it avoid many of the problems that have arisen in Western cities, such as urban sprawl and gridlock. That economic, political, and geographic diversity offers a wealth of reference points for China’s cities that should not be ignored and can help China avoid problems that have plagued many Western metropolises.

However, it is necessary to research the applicability of particular international experiences, considering the uniqueness of China’s history and culture. Too often analyses of Western urbanization are presented as a blueprint for China, when in fact institutional, economic, and political differences mean that, for one reason or another, those solutions are impractical or unfeasible.

Land Lines: Why is China’s urbanization and urban development so important to the West?

Canfei He: China’s urbanization will be one of the most important dynamics of the twenty-first century, not only for China but also for the West and the rest of the world. Millions of newly affluent consumers and empowered global citizens will exert significant new demands on the world’s finite natural resources in several ways.

First, with the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, China and the world committed themselves to halving the number of people living on less than $1 per day by 2015. Given China’s large number of rural poor, the country’s urbanization and economic development will be instrumental in meeting this important goal, as well as in achieving other goals such as those related to education and improving children’s health. Only cities have the institutional reach and financial capacity to meet these goals on a large scale.

Second, much has been made of the gulf in understanding between China and the West in recent years. Urbanization and urban development will help to integrate China further into the global community, but it may also create more opportunities for cultural friction. The West has a vested interest in seeing that China urbanizes in an atmosphere that encourages openness and intercultural exchange.

Third, history demonstrates that urbanization entails a much greater demand for energy and other resources as living standards rise and as consumption and dietary patterns change. It has become a cliché to say that “as China goes, so goes the world,” but China’s urbanization and its related environmental impacts will have direct implications for the West and the rest of the world.

The recent memory of $150 per barrel of oil shows that this future demand is likely to put great stress on international energy markets and the global economy. This latent demand also has broad implications for China’s CO₂ emissions and for global climate change. The United States and China are key to any real hope of keeping the increase in average global temperatures less than 2 degrees Celsius warmer than preindustrial levels, as proposed at the recent climate conference in Copenhagen. Whereas the high level of development in Western countries means that changes happen incrementally, China’s rapid urbanization offers hope to limit the world’s future emissions by making significant changes now as the country develops.

Tao Ran is a professor in the School of Economics at Renmin University of China and director of the university’s China Center for Public Economics and Governance. He is also a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institute. His field of specialization centers on China’s urbanization and the political economy of the economic transition, land and household registration reform, and local governance and public finance in rural China. His diverse research has appeared in the Journal of Comparative Economics, Journal of Development Studies, Land Economics, Urban Studies, Political Studies, China Quarterly, and Land Use Policy.

Dr. Tao received his PhD in economics from the University of Chicago in 2002. He is a long-time research fellow at the Peking University-Lincoln Institute Center for Urban Development and Land Policy and was previously a Shaw Research Fellow of Chinese Economy at the University of Oxford’s Institute of Chinese Studies. With funding from PKU–Lincoln Institute and from other agencies, such as the National Science Foundation of China, he led a research team and started a large survey on urban migrants and dispossessed farmers in 12 cities across China’s four major urbanizing areas: the Yangtze River Delta (Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces), the Pearl River Delta (Guangdong province), Chengdu–Chongqing region (Sichuan province and Chongqing municipality), and Bohai Bay Area (Hebei and Shandong provinces). He is also working on a project to pilot new urban village redevelopment models in Shenzhen municipality and the Pearl River Delta.

Land Lines: Why is the study of China’s political economy and its transition so important to the country’s future?

Tao Ran: After enjoying nearly double-digit growth in the past three decades, China has become the shining star of the 21st-century global economy. People marvel at its successful transformation from a third-world country into the world’s largest manufacturing base and second largest economy—an evolution that lifted 450 million people out of poverty. As China grows, however, it faces widening income inequality, serious corruption and pollution, and social injustice that has left hundreds of millions of temporary migrants without access to decent urban public services and tens of millions of undercompensated, dispossessed farmers transitioning into industrialized urban economies.

My research explores the institutional sources of China’s fast growth in the past decades as well as the implications, positive and negative, of China as an alternative model for the developing world—as an effective, growth-oriented autocracy with heavy investments in infrastructure and industries, massive exports of manufacturing goods, and selective government intervention and industrial policies. I believe it’s essential to predict what will happen to China in the near future, because it will have important implications for the whole developing world.

Land Lines: Why do you think it is important to study land and household registration? What do these studies say about the current state of China’s socioeconomic structure?

Tao Ran:China is in the midst of an urban revolution, sustaining a massive volume of rural-to-urban migration every year in the last three decades. About 200 million rural migrants are working and living in Chinese cities. Yet, under the persistent hukou (household registration) system, a majority of migrants with hukou registration in their homelands exist as “outsiders” or “temporary population” in their new cities of residence. They are denied access to welfare benefits, subsidized public housing, and urban public schools.

Their difficulties are compounded by highly distorted land use patterns. Typically, when countries urbanize, less than 20 percent of newly utilized land supports manufacturing, leaving a majority of that territory to accommodate migrant housing. Under the current Chinese land requisition-leasing system, local governments lease around 40 percent of newly utilized land to build industrial parks, leaving only 30 to 40 percent of the area every year for residential purposes.

China’s current land use and household registration systems help to generate several dual socioeconomic structures as well. Besides the widely acknowledged urban-rural dichotomy, there is also a dual structure of urban permanent residents versus migrants. Another duality separates homeowners from urban rentees who lag far behind in terms of wealth accumulation. As 90 percent of homeowners are permanent residents, and 95 percent of renters are migrants, these dual structures lead to a highly divided society.

Land Lines: What land use challenges will China face in the coming decade?

Tao Ran:Many cities have constructed industrial parks, or “garden-style factories,” that make very inefficient use of land. Industrial companies lease land at an extremely low price and use only a part of it, leaving other areas undeveloped or allocated for large-scale greenification projects. Local governments undersupply residential and commercial land in order to maximize profits, leading to undersupplied commercial/residential land markets, followed by serious bubbles in the real estate sector. The rapid rise in urban housing prices and the formation of a real estate bubble over the past decade has made it impossible for the vast majority of rural migrant populations to afford commodity housing in cities. In fact, even new labor force entrants with university degrees find that today’s housing prices are far higher than they can afford. Clearly, housing affordability has become the main challenge to China today.

The aftermath of the 2008 world financial crisis had a huge impact on China. The fiscal and financial stimulus package implemented by the central government mainly benefitted local governments, which have continued to invest in even more industrial parks. Consequently, the Chinese economy has experienced more overcapacity in industrial infrastructure and manufacturing goods as well as more serious housing bubbles across all tiers of cities. This path is all the more unsustainable considering that China already suffered from overcapacity in manufacturing and real estate bubbles before 2008. Given the moral hazards of borrowing from state-owned banks and the fiscal illusion that the housing bubble will continue, local government debts have reached an unprecedented level of 10 trillion RMB, half of which was accumulated after 2009. I f there is no real reform in the systems governing land, hukou registration, and local public finance, the Chinese economy will slow down quite significantly. In the worst-case scenario, the housing bubble will burst, leading to a full-scale financial and economic crisis.

Land Lines: What are some potential policy implications of your research on local governance and public finance in rural China?

Tao Ran: China needs to reform its land and household registration systems so that migrants can access affordable housing and decent public schooling services in cities. Land has played an essential role in the making of China’s growth model in the past 15 years—but it is also responsible for current economic woes. In my view, a reform package that centers on land and urbanization provides the best chance of creating a better balance between the country’s import and export rates by unleashing huge domestic demand and relieving the overcapacity problem in many Chinese industries.

I propose a gradualist approach that aims to build a more equitable dual-track system. Under the current land regulatory regime, land ownership is separated into urban and rural; while urban governments have the authority to allocate rural areas for urban development, rural governments do not have the same rights in reciprocity. This bias deprives rural residents of their development rights and leads the Chinese economy down a destructive path.

Total liberalization, however, may result in a crash of the existing housing bubbles when a large volume of rural land is made available to the market. To alleviate this concern on the part of local governments and urban homeowners, China may need to set up a rental property market track targeting the 200 million rural migrants who already live and work in cities. Half of them currently live in dormitories provided by their employers, and the other half reside in illegally built housing in urban villages without good infrastructure or access to urban public services such as education for migrating children. I propose a reform that would allow rural communities in suburban villages of migrant-receiving cities to take their nonagricultural land onto the urban housing market under one condition: for the first 10 to 15 years, they could build properties used only for rental purposes. After the transitional period, those houses would gain full rights, and they could be sold directly on the housing market.

Land Lines: What are the advantages of this design?

Tao Ran: Insulating developable rural land in the rental market initially provides a cushion for the existing real estate market and prevents market panics and a bursting of the housing bubble. Merging the two tracks, however, would send speculators a credible signal that residential building prices will not rise further, and so the central government could phase out its strict regulations on real estate markets installed since 2010 to curb the housing bubble. Such a reform package would contribute to a healthy growth of the housing market. Moreover, granting rural communities development rights—even if those rights were restricted during the transition period—would open the legal channel for them to apply for development loans.

This opportunity would unleash a housing construction boom in urban villages and suburban areas and provide a lift for construction-related industries with significant overcapacity. Unlike the current housing bubble, this kind of real estate development is more socially beneficial and economically sustainable. Rural residents, particularly those living close to urban centers, would benefit directly. The growth in the rental property track also makes housing affordable for hundreds of millions of migrant workers, enabling them to settle in cities permanently. Urbanization has the potential to turn the Chinese economy away from the investment-driven model.

Land Lines: What is the key to the success of this reform?

Tao Ran: The attitude of local governments is critical. Their concern over revenues is perfectly legitimate and needs to be addressed in the reform package. Under the current system, local governments are burdened with too many spending responsibilities, and they lack adequate revenues. After the reform, they would have limited power of land requisition and lose the sizeable land lease fees and bank loans associated with that power. In the long run, municipalities should levy property taxes to generate a stable source of income for local public finance. Considering the strong resistance from wealthy and politically powerful residents of the cities introducing the property tax on a trial basis, however, it is unrealistic to expect this new tax to take effect soon.

I believe that another untapped source for local governments is underutilized industrial land. According to various reports, the floor-area ratio is only about 0.3 to 0.4 for industrial parks even in China’s developed areas. Through reorganization by negotiation, it is possible to double land development intensity and convert some industrial land for residential and commercial construction. Our estimates show that local governments would be more than compensated for giving up the power of land requisition, and they could also use these revenues to pay back the debts and avert a financial crisis.

At the current stage of development, no reform in the Chinese economy is going to be easy. One certainly should not have any illusions about a quick fix. But the proposed dual-track reform package offers some real hope of boosting domestic consumption and alleviating the overcapacity problem in many sectors. One particularly favorable factor for this reform is the new leadership’s emphasis on urbanization. Premier Li Keqiang has spent years on this issue and seems to have a genuine interest in achieving breakthroughs. This proposal may provide a realistic roadmap for such reforms.

Land Lines: What lessons can China teach?

Tao Ran: The Chinese model successfully effects growth. It also generates several negative consequences, such as the over-leveraging of land, social unrest resulting from land grabbing, environmental damages, and housing bubbles, which burden the urban population. The Chinese lesson is that for a country to grow, the government is essential; but that same government may overdo things and, in the long run, generate distortions that finally damage the sustainability of the economy and society.