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AbstractZoning operates within institutional policy norms. Current neoliberal norms encourage land use policy aimed at attaining highest achievable real estate values. As a result, a public policy tool originally intended to protect urban society from the negative impacts of excessive intense real estate development now facilitates such development. This transformation is most clearly seen in the evolution of transferable development rights (TDRs) from a device intended to facilitate adjustment of unique site‐specific regulatory matters into one widely used to privately appropriate socially created site values. TDRs detach zoned development rights from site‐specific locations. So, their use over ever‐widening districts implies that socially created area‐wide value can be privately appropriated by property owners at specific sites, property owners who typically played little or no role in the creation of such value. In the process, these rights become financialized. This financialization encourages developers to seek further expansion in the size of the district within which these rights are fungible. In a global era of extremely low interest rates, real estate assets, which hold the promise of capital safety and above‐average returns, have become exceptionally attractive portfolio holdings. This investment environment encourages urban planners and real estate developers to further rationalize and hence financialize the ever‐wider use of these rights in some of the densest urban environments in the world. The historic experience of evolving zoning policy in New York City's central business district, Manhattan below West 59th Street, serves as an illustration of the way TDRs as a land use regulatory device have evolved to facilitate this financialization.

The book 'Place Matters: Metropolitics for the Twenty-First Century' by Peter Dreier, John Mollenkopf, and Todd Swanstrom is reviewed.

"This book sets out a road map for the provision of urban access for all. Cities in developing countries have followed a path of dependency on transport systems dominated by car usage and favouring the middle classes. Urban Access for the 21st Century looks at ways in which policies can be formed in the developing world to prevent cities in these countries from following the same trajectory, and to help them shift away from those policies which are embedded in current financial systems. Through a series of chapters form international contributors, the book brings together expertise from different fields to show how small changes can incentivise positive developments in urban transport and create truly accessible cities"-Provided by publisher

A distinction is made between output maximizing & cost minimizing approaches to national economic policy. It is argued that because the benefits & costs of economic activity frequently accrue to distinct groups in society, it is not automatically true that output maximization is the best strategy. This is especially true when the problems of distressed economic regions are concerned. National & multinational firms that make decisions pertaining to the economic life of local communities do so not on the basis of the costs & benefits to the community, but with regard to their private balance sheet. As a result, communities of individuals must frequently bear social costs far in excess of the private gains to the firms in question. From a policy standpoint, this is not an efficient use of either social or economic resources. In the absence of any type of comprehensive economic planning, a rational, market-oriented economic strategy would seek to minimize social costs. Modified HA.

Successful public transit systems increase the value of locations they serve. Capturing this location value to help fund transit is often sensible, but challenging. This article defines location value capture and synthesizes lessons learned from six European and North American transit agencies that have experience with location value capture funding. The opportunities for and barriers to implementing location value capture fall into three categories: agency institutional authority, agency organizational mission, and public support for transit. When any of these factors is incompatible with a location value capture strategy, implementation becomes difficult. In four of the cases studied, dramatic institutional change was critical for success. In five cases, acute crisis was a catalyst for institutional change, value capture implementation, or both. Using value capture strategies to fund transit requires practitioners to both understand agency organizational constraints and view transit agencies as institutions that can transform in response to changing situations.