An Overview On Planning Systems And Urban Markets In Europe

The process of European unification calls for new shared competencies in the field of planning and the urban market, especially in the countries where a transition is underway — and nearing completion — towards a regime of virtually total privatisation of real estate property. Gaining an understanding of the tasks of the local authorities, the landowners and the investors; the urban planning tools and their levels of force regarding the building permit; the land tools that exist and those that are actually used: all this is essential to be able to determine whether or not there is a common structure in Europe in terms of planning systems and urban market. The reports collected in this volume provide an overview of these themes in 9 European countries:— five former socialist countries in Central and Eastern Europe (Estonia, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia and Poland), which are now shaping a new system from scratch. The formal system is quite new or still in the course of implementation;— four western countries (Denmark, Finland, France and Italy) with a long tradition of private property of the soil, market economy and a law abiding state. This book is the fruit of the works carried out during two years’ time within the framework of a European project, Leonardo da Vinci, referred to as Urban Planning System in Europe — URBAX2 (2002–2004).The book is divided into four parts. The first part illustrates the urban development planning and management systems used in Southern Europe; the second is about the urban system in Northern Europe; the third and most sizeable part illustrates the processes of transformation in the countries undergoing a transition from a Soviet system to a market economy, not so well known at the moment. The last part of the book is about more technical, specific aspects of the pedagogical tool Urbax, a role game that simulates the development of the urban market in relation to land use regulations (especially zoning and related rules) in a theoretical city and it does so by means of an ad hoc software that enables the players to make their moves within the game session. Urbax served as a starting point to develop a comparison between the urban systems of the EU Project member countries.