Cheshire_Blog_Index
October 2016
Toronto Metropolitan University's Centre for Urban Research and Land Development (CUR) held a seminar on October 28, 2016 which focussed on the important role economics should be playing in helping achieve societal land-use planning objectives while minimizing economic and social costs. The keynote speaker, Professor Paul Cheshire (external link) at the London School of Economics, has engaged in research on the economic effects of land-use planning since the early 1980s.
In 2014, Paul along with fellow professors, Max Nathan and Henry Overman, authored a bold and often controversial book Urban Economics and Urban Policy: Challenging Conventional Policy Wisdom (external link) which is highly critical of the British land use planning system since ‘containment’ policies were imposed with the enactment of the Town and Country Act in 1947 and tightened in the 1950s as Greenbelt boundaries were established. While the authors identify and assiduously research the economic and social costs inherent in British land use planning, they also evaluate options to the current system and propose (what they call) radical reforms to it. These reforms involve less state directive and more reliance on a combination of incentives and greater use of price signals.
The British experience is relevant to planning in the Greater Golden Horseshoe (GGH) given that Ontario’s planning system drew inspiration from what was called town planning in Britain. Also, the fact that Britain’s ‘containment’ policies, enacted some 50 years before Ontario’s Green Belt and the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe, provide a laboratory for determining economic and social impacts and costs in Ontario (allowing of course for some significant differences in the systems), and initiatives to counter them.
In the time leading up to the seminar, CUR released 5 blog entries which showcased some of the insights and recommendations from Cheshire and his two co-authors. Please click the links below to read the entries.
Blog #3: The alchemy by which land use regulation turns housing in Greater London into gold