Recentering land use

Abstract

In this debate, we argue that scholars examining questions of value and exclusion in the planning process would benefit greatly by looking at the legal and spatial processes of land use and property more closely and recognizing the ways that law reflects and shapes social relations of place. We contend that the relationship between planning, property, and land use needs to be taken more seriously in order to challenge the conventional notion of land use as a predetermined, static, and taken for granted aspect of the urban landscape. We aim to open up new avenues for understanding urban processes of valuation and exclusion by examining existing understandings of the relationship between law and land use, and giving evidence for why scholars should pay attention to them. This debate builds on and complements recent debates on property, law, and everyday life in the city, and aims to continue unpacking the black box of land use. It calls for a renewed attention to the socio-legal aspects of the land use/property relationship to better understand urban processes of valorization and exclusion.

Key words:

• planning
• land use
• property
• exclusion
• valuation
• law

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge that their work takes place on the traditional lands of the Huron-Wendat, the Haudenosaunee, Ojibway/Chippewa, Anishnabe and, in particular, the Mississaugas of the New Credit (Ontario, Canada); and the unceded territories of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh, and Musqueam Nations (Vancouver, Canada). We would like to thank Christine Jocoy and Kenton Card for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Special thanks also go to the participants and attendees of the “Law and Land Use: Property, Planning and the Control of Urban Space” sessions at the 2018 Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers, in New Orleans, LA, for their insights, provocations, and queries, all of which informed our thinking during the writing of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nick Lombardo

Nick Lombardo is a PhD candidate in the Department of Geography and Planning at the University of Toronto.

Trevor J Wideman

Trevor J Wideman is a PhD candidate in the Department of Geography at Simon Fraser University. Email: [email protected]