Compound growth and land: What are the implications for planning?

摘要

The possibility that the global economy is growing at a compound rate and the consequent influence of this on land values presents an important and presently under-considered new context for planners, as well as for society as a whole. Current trends are already indicating significantly increasing values, and if the explanation lies in compound global growth and the related requirement on the part of the owners of capital for surplus absorption opportunities, then, if left unchecked, such trends could potentially increase in almost unimaginable trajectories over the coming decades. For planners, it will be important to have a clear grasp of these trends and where they may be heading, both for the purposes of gaining leverage in development negotiations in the present context, and also in participating in debates around wider policy or taxation alterations in the longer term. Whilst a number of the issues discussed in this Viewpoint are perennial, and in some cases go back hundreds of years, the onset of potentially compounding land values presents an impetus to the debate historically before unknown.