Public Management of Urban Land, Enabling Markets and Low-income Housing Provision: The Overlooked Experience of Iran

This paper examines the first 10 years (1979—89) of the implementation of the Urban Land Act in Iran in order to revisit the debate on the capacity of market-enabling policies to improve low-income housing provision in developing countries. The outcome of the Iranian experience during the study period shows that, at the very least, governments can play an important and effective role in low- and middle-income housing provision through direct provision of urban land in parallel with markets. This suggests that the best way forward may be a combination of market-enabling approaches that develop basic institutional functions plus proactive government intervention for developing public land banks to provide better access to cheap land for a range of housing providers including individual households, co-operatives and private developers.

[1]  K. Ringen,et al.  The Construction Industry , 2006, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

[2]  A. Venables,et al.  Cities in the developing world , 2005 .

[3]  R. Buckley,et al.  Shelter Strategies for the Urban Poor: Idiosyncratic and Successful, But Hardly Mysterious , 2004 .

[4]  Vinit Mukhija.  The Contradictions in Enabling Private Developers of Affordable Housing: A Cautionary Case from Ahmedabad, India , 2004 .

[5]  Mary Hallward-Driemeier,et al.  World development report 2005: a better investment climate for everyone , 2004 .

[6]  C. Kurzman.  The Qum Protests and the Coming of the Iranian Revolution, 1975 and 1978 , 2003, Social Science History.

[7]  Richard Harris,et al.  A mixed message: the agents and forms of international housing policy, 1945–1973 , 2003 .

[8]  Ann Varley,et al.  Private or public: debating the meaning of tenure legalization , 2002 .

[9]  E. Fernandes,et al.  Secure tenure for the urban poor , 2002 .

[10]  A. Bagré,et al.  Current changes and trends: Benin, Burkina Faso and Senegal , 2002 .

[11]  Vinit Mukhija,et al.  Enabling Slum Redevelopment in Mumbai: Policy Paradox in Practice , 2001 .

[12]  K. Datta,et al.  Housing and finance in developing countries: invisible issues on research and policy agendas , 2001 .

[13]  Geoffrey Payne,et al.  Urban land tenure policy options: titles or rights? , 2001 .

[14]  Cedric Pugh,et al.  The Theory and Practice of Housing Sector Development for Developing Countries, 1950-99 , 2001 .

[15]  Ramin Keivani,et al.  Refocusing the housing debate in developing countries from a pluralist perspective , 2001 .

[16]  Ramin Keivani,et al.  Modes of housing provision in developing countries , 2001 .

[17]  K. Datta,et al.  Enabling Markets to Work? Housing Policy in the 'New' South Africa , 2000 .

[18]  Schlomo Angel,et al.  Housing Policy Matters: A Global Analysis , 2000 .

[19]  H. D. Soto.  The mystery of capital : the role of property rights in creating wealth and alleviating poverty , 2004 .

[20]  Richard Harris,et al.  The silence of the experts: “Aided self-help housing”, 1939–1954 , 1998 .

[21]  G. Jones.  The difference between truth and adequacy: (re)joining Baken, van der Linden and Malpezzi , 1996 .

[22]  H. Majedi.  Public acquisition of urban land and allocation for housing and urban development in Iran (1979-1988) , 1996 .

[23]  W. P. Strassmann.  Oversimplification in housing analysis, with reference to land markets and mobility , 1994 .

[24]  P. Ward,et al.  The World Bank's ‘new’ urban management programme: Paradigm shift or policy continuity? , 1994 .

[25]  S. Malpezzi.  'Getting the Incentives Right': A Reply to Robert-Jan Baken and Jan van der Linden , 1994 .

[26]  J. Barlow,et al.  Controlling the Housing Land Market: Some Examples from Europe , 1993 .

[27]  Robert-Jan Baken,et al.  'Getting the Incentives Right': Banking on the Formal Private Sector. A Critique of World Bank Thinking on Low-Income Housing Delivery in Third World Cities , 1993 .

[28]  J. Linden,et al.  Land Delivery for Low Income Groups in Third World Cities , 1992 .

[29]  Alain Durand Lasserve.  Land and housing in Third World cities , 1987 .

[30]  B. P. Acharya.  The Indian Urban Land Ceiling Act : a critique of the 1976 legislation, policy of land acquisition and development : analysis of an Indian experience , 1987 .

[31]  S. Duncan.  House building, profits and social efficiency in Sweden and Britain , 1986 .

[32]  P. McAuslan.  Urban land and shelter for the poor , 1985 .

[33]  D. Okpala.  The Nigerian land-use decree revisited , 1982 .

[34]  George Ofori,et al.  The construction industry in Ghana , 1980 .

[35]  A. Strong.  Land banking : European reality, American prospect , 1979 .

[36]  H. Darin-Drabkin.  Land policy and urban growth , 1977 .