Institutional Change in Land Planning: Two Cases from Galicia

Abstract

Why do societies implement land policies? A number of arguments have been put forward in the literature, ranging from economic conceptions based on market failure and the problem of negative externalities to a more social conception based on welfare distribution and collaborative planning. However, neither all societies with similar market failures or negative externalities develop and implement land planning nor implemented land planning always results from collaborative planning. The arguments found in the literature seem not to fit the reality and, in most cases, cannot explain why societies create or undertake innovations in land planning. Within the framework of institutional change theory and based on the analysis of the emergence of two land planning devices—a land use law and a land banking law—in Galicia, Northwest Spain, this paper argues that land planning is developed to tackle negative outcomes of former institutional setups. However, the negativity of such outcomes is measured not in terms of economic performance, but in terms of social acceptance. The search for a workable definition of property within the Galician society seems to be the main driver of institutional change in land use planning analysed in this paper.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Harvey Jacobs and Erwin van der Krabben for hosting the first author at the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, at the University Wisconsin-Madison, and at the Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen, Radboud University Nijmegen. The research stays were funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science through the research project “Sistema de Ayuda a la Decisión Espacial en la Ordenación Territorial de Ámbito Local (SADE-OTAL)”. They would also like to thank Daniel Bromley, Edwin Buitelaar and Patsy Healey for their helpful and fruitful comments during the writing of the paper.

Notes

According to the Spanish Institute of Statistics: “A human settlement is any habitable area of the municipality, where there are inhabited housing units, and these areas are clearly differentiated and known by a specific name that identifies it without confusion”. http://www.ine.es/nomen2/Metodologia.do

In Spain, Galicia is considered a region with its own culture and traditions, which are more related to the traditions of Northern Portugal than to those of the rest of Spain. During the Spanish dictatorship, these differences with the Spanish culture, such as the own language, were persecuted and abolished. The Galician Statute of Autonomy of 1981, approved after the end of Franco's regime, recognized Galicia's own culture and, consequently, specific powers and competencies such as the organization of the self-government institutions and the development of policies for housing, territorial and urban management. The law of 1985 was passed in this context.