Owning the City

Marsha McGraw Olive

Description

Competition between democratic and authoritarian systems is playing out in global cities, where real property rights influence regime legitimacy and economic performance. Two questions inspire debate.Why does the property-owning middle class, which was integral to democratic development in the West, support illiberal governments? Do differences between political systems affect the success of global cities?

Marsha McGraw Olive unravels these questions by comparing urban land governance in Europe and Eurasia. Democracies largely, but not exclusively, perform better than hybrid or authoritarian regimes on real property rights, land-related regulations, and citizen engagement in urban planning. Case studies of Moscow and Istanbul show that urban real property is fundamental to regime stability, bringing wealth to average citizens and favoured elites. This formula, perfected by President Putin, bestows economic but not political benefits to middle-class property owners.

The book argues that all cities need to improve land governance to cope with twenty-first century urban challenges. Cities that respect property rights and put citizens at the centre of urban planning achieve better outcomes. In contrast, illiberal leaders who rely on opaque property deals are inciting public backlash and slowing economic growth. In the global political competition, real property rights are a chink in the authoritarian armour.

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1. Globally successful cities

2. Urban political economy in historical perspective

3. Urban land governance: liberal and illiberal patterns

4. Cautionary tale: Moscow

5. Cautionary tale: Istanbul

6. Conclusions

Sujets

• City Planning
• Public Policy
• Political Economy
• Political Science
• Urban Development
• Geography
• Index of urban studies articles
• Economic geography

Informations

• Publié par: Agenda Publishing
• Date de parution: 07 juillet 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781788214704
• Langue: English

Extrait

Owning the City
Understanding Europe
The Council for European Studies book series
Series Editor: Mark Vail, Wake Forest University, North Carolina
This series of books in association with the Council for European Studies publishes research-based work that contributes to our understanding of contemporary Europe, its nation states, institutions and societies. The series mirrors the CES’s commitment to supporting research that plays a critical role in understanding and applying the lessons of European history and integration to contemporary problems, including those in the areas of global security, sustainability, environmental stewardship and democracy.
Published

European Studies: Past, Present and Future
Edited by Erik Jones

Owning the City: Property Rights in Authoritarian Regimes
Marsha McGraw Olive
Owning the City
Property Rights in Authoritarian Regimes
Marsha McGraw Olive
For David, Andrew and Philip
© Marsha McGraw Olive 2022
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
All rights reserved.
First published in 2022 by Agenda Publishing
Agenda Publishing Limited
The Core
Bath Lane
Newcastle Helix
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE4 5TF
www.agendapub.com
ISBN 978-1-78821-468-1

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Typeset by Newgen Publishing UK
Printed and bound in the UK by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
Contents
Acknowledgements
List of figures and tables
1 Introduction and argument
2 Globally successful cities
3 Urban political economy in historical perspective
4 Urban land governance: liberal and illiberal patterns
5 Cautionary tale: Moscow
6 Cautionary tale: Istanbul
7 Conclusions and prognosis
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I am grateful to David, Andrew and Philip for their unwavering love, patience and support as the project unfolded over the course of a decade. This book is dedicated to the three most important men in my life.
The intellectual odyssey began in the 2000s with lectures at the World Bank by leading scholars such as Daron Acemoğlu, Douglass C. North, Elinor Ostrom, James Robinson, Dani Rodrik, John Wallis and Francis Fukuyama. Their theoretical insights into the role and function of institutions in political and economic development helped me make sense of property conflicts I had observed between state and society in the former Soviet Union and central and eastern Europe, where I worked for over 25 years as a World Bank officer and foundation executive. I am indebted to their scholarship.
Numerous World Bank colleagues provided knowledge and guidance that shaped the research at an early stage in the 2010s. These include Brian Levy, Jana Kunicova, Kimberly Johns (governance), Alain Bertaud, Gavin Adlington, Malcolm Childriss (urban land policy), Indermit Gill, Chor-Ching Goh (economic geography), Vera Matusevich, Gregory Kisunko, Juan Navas-Sabater, Sylvie K. Bossoutrot, Tatyana Ponomareva (Russian land relations and ways of doing business) and Georgi Panterov (data analysis).
More recently the wisdom and vision of several scholar-practitioners helped me broaden the argument following my post-doctoral research at the Istanbul Studies Center from 2015 to 2017. My deepest appreciation goes to Professor Dr Himmet Murat Güvenç, director, Istanbul Studies Center; Alain Bertaud, fellow at the Marron Institute and author of Order without Design: How Markets Shape Cities ( 2018 ); and Bruno Lanvin, president of the Smart City Observatory, 1 creator of the Global City Talent Competitiveness Index (GCTCI) and co-founder of the Portulans Institute.
Without thoughtful mentorship during my doctoral studies and advice as I transitioned to academia, I would not have the qualifications to produce a book of this wide-ranging scope. Very special thanks go to Bruce Parrott (professor emeritus of European and Eurasian studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS); Peter Rutland (professor of government, Wesleyan University) and Erik Jones (director of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute and professor of European studies and international political economy (on leave) at Johns Hopkins SAIS.
I am grateful to Erik Jones for his suggestion to submit a book proposal on this topic and to Alison Howson at Agenda Publishing for her comments on the manuscript and guidance during the publication process. The suggestions of an anonymous reader and the careful eye of Peter Rutland on the Russia case study were most appreciated.
Finally, without tireless research and editorial support from Sobir Kurbanov and graduate students at Johns Hopkins SAIS I could not have achieved the standards set by Agenda Publishing. My warmest thanks go to Maya Camargo-Vemuri, Steph Tarnovetchi, Howard Berkowitz and Alperen Eken. You all have very promising futures as scholars or practitioners.
Marsha McGraw Olive

1. See www.imd.org/smart-city-observatory/Home (accessed 14 December 2020).
List of figures and tables
Figures
2.1 Moscow and Istanbul lag on talent competitiveness indicators
2.2 Governance indicators in global cities
4.1 Population density profile of Moscow and Paris
4.2 Quality of property registration in post-transition Europe, 2020
5.1 Russian Federation: structure of land ownership for individual housing, 2019
5.2 Top ten Moscow real estate developers, 2015
5.3 Top ten Moscow real estate developers, 2020
5.4 Moscow comparative governance indicators, 2020
5.5 Index of housing costs in Moscow in different currencies, 2000–21
5.6 Protests for non-political causes, Moscow and Moscow Oblast, 2006–16
6.1 State income from privatization of real property in Turkey, 2004–20
6.2 Occupancy permits in Istanbul for private and public buildings by area and value, 2000–20
6.3 “Istanbul is yours, decision is yours”
6.4 Ankara governance indicators
6.5 Turkey and the European Union: construction and real estate trends, 2005–20
6.6 Istanbul: trends in per capita GDP, 2004–19
Tables
2.1 Global competitiveness of cities: selected indices
4.1 State housing rentals in selected former Soviet bloc countries (as a percentage of all housing)
5.1 Obstacles to land access in Russia and Europe, 2008
5.2 Land ownership and ease of property registration in selected Russian cities, 2011
5.3 Land ownership in Moscow, 2010–19
5.4 Quality of land administration: Moscow compared to global megacities, 2019
5.5 Housing per capita in Russia, 2012–19
6.1 State income from privatized and expropriated real property in Turkey, 2015–20
6.2 Quality of land administration in Istanbul, 2016 and 2020
6.3 Social infrastructure in Istanbul versus global standards, 2020
6.4 Structure of land ownership in Istanbul, 2006
6.5 Structure of land ownership in Istanbul, 2016
6.6 Public and private land ownership in Istanbul, 2006–16
1
Introduction and argument

What we call land is an element of nature inextricably interwoven with man’s institutions. To isolate it and form a market out of it was perhaps the weirdest of all undertakings of our ancestors … [Land] invests man’s life with stability; it is the site of his habitation; it is a condition of his physical safety; it is the landscape and the seasons. We might as well imagine his being born without hands and feet as carrying on his life without land. And yet to separate land from man and organize society in such a way as to satisfy the requirements of a real estate market was a vital part of the utopian concept of a market economy.
Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation ( 1957 [1944])
Cities 1 are the pulse of nations. The greatest among them – London, Paris, New York, to name a few – have long captured the imagination of historians, novelists and travellers. Yet the importance of cities as global actors and their centrality in shaping human affairs has ebbed and flowed over the centuries, along with their fortunes. Venice, the centre of Mediterranean commerce for hundreds of years, faded into a tourist haven; Lisbon, once the capital of world voyagers, lost its leadership after the 1755 earthquake; Florence, the birthplace of the Western Enlightenment, evolved into a picturesque provincial city. In more recent times Detroit, the “Motor City” capital, has been struggling to reinvent itself, like many other manufacturing rust belt cities. Others have been destroyed by war or fire, such as Berlin (1618–48, 1945), Moscow (1571, 1611, 1812), Istanbul (1569, 1660), Tokyo (1657, 1945), London (1660) and Chicago (1871). Yet they recovered, and now thrive as twenty-first-century metropolises.
This book is about the fortunes of cities, told not from the standpoint of calamities or commerce or culture but from the shaping and moulding of urban land through the social convention of property rights. How does an invisible, intangible force over physical space affect urban life? And why should we care?
The short answer is that the way major cities govern land is a barometer of the economic and political health of any state. Governance rests on real property rights, which define the legal framework for control and use of real estate (land and buildings). As a source of wealth and power, urban real estate is an arena ripe for contestation. To balance conflicting rights, contestation of land use decisions by any individual or organization, whether landowning or not, is a principle of democratic land governance. But, for leaders in authoritarian states, the manipulation of real property rights is the coin of politics and fundamental to regime stability. The durability of that assumption is now in question following street protests, publicity about corruption and the abuse of real property rights in several authoritarian states. A general aim of the book is to unravel the puzzle of private rea