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Land as airspace: How rezoning privatizes public space (and why governments should not give it away for free)

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  • Murray, Cameron

    (The University of Sydney)

  • Gordon, Josh

Abstract

A popular but contested view is that mass rezoning is an essential policy measure to address housing affordability. Often obscured in debates about this measure is that rezoning involves the privatization of public space. We clarify the nature of the policy by recognizing that property rights over land are, conceptually, a bundle of socially negotiated rights to parcels of airspace. This view shows that rezoning to provide rights to airspace for existing landowners is not costless. It involves transferring valuable property rights from the public to existing private landowners for free, creating a more unequal distribution of property rights ownership without necessarily generating faster housing development. We argue that giving away public rights to airspace should not be done for free and explore what policy measures retain value from residential rezoning for the public.

Suggested Citation

  • Murray, Cameron & Gordon, Josh, 2021. "Land as airspace: How rezoning privatizes public space (and why governments should not give it away for free)," OSF Preprints v89fg, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:osfxxx:v89fg
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/v89fg
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Murray, Cameron K. & Frijters, Paul, 2016. "Clean money, dirty system: Connected landowners capture beneficial land rezoning," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 99-114.
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    6. Natacha Aveline-Dubach & Guillaume Blandeau, 2019. "The political economy of transit value capture: The changing business model of the MTRC in Hong Kong," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(16), pages 3415-3431, December.
    7. Murray, Cameron, 2020. "A housing supply absorption rate equation," OSF Preprints 7n8rj, Center for Open Science.
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    9. Quigley, John M. & Rosenthal, Larry A., 2005. "The Effects of Land-Use Regulation on the Price of Housing: What Do We Know? What Can We Learn?," Berkeley Program on Housing and Urban Policy, Working Paper Series qt90m9g90w, Berkeley Program on Housing and Urban Policy.
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    11. Gabriel Metcalf, 2018. "Sand Castles before the Tide? Affordable Housing in Expensive Cities," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 32(1), pages 59-80, Winter.
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