Donald A. Krueckeberg

The Difficult Character of Property: To Whom Do Things Belong?

Abstract Land use has long been a central concept in planning, combining ideas of utility with location. But by focusing on the utilitarian question of “Where do things belong?” we tend to miss the underlying issue of distributive justice, “To whom do things belong?” This paper argues that the question of property and ownership is the most fundamental to planning. Property definitions, rights, and distribution are at the center of current political, economic, and cultural debates throughout the world and are central to plannings efforts to shape community life. The paper explores the concept of property in four contexts: (1) the transformations of American land from common use to private commodity, (2) the theory of property, from John Locke to the taking issue, (3) the distribution of use rights and income rights in property relations, and (4) the shortcomings for planning of the private/public duality.

The grapes of rent: A history of renting in a country of owners

Abstract In a recent study of neighborhood development, Goetz and Sidney (1994) found an “ideology of property” separating the interests of homeowners from the interests of lower‐income tenants. According to this ideology, owners are better citizens than renters, and therefore public policy should benefit owners at the expense of renters. In spite of continuing research that shows this allegation to be false, a widespread bias against renters persists. Why is this so? A deliberate bias favoring property owners and harming renters has been prominent in American public policy from colonial times to the present, although its exact form has varied over time—property requirements for suffrage, land redistribution schemes promising ownership but delivering tenancy and poverty, and tax policies that privilege ownership and punish tenancy. Public policy that stigmatizes renters represents a bias as pernicious as other biases of gender, race, religion, and nationality.

Bombs and Butterflies: A Case Study of the Challenges of Post Cold War Environmental Planning and Management for the US Nuclear Weapons Sites

When the cold war ended, the United States stopped developing,testing and building nuclear weapons at nearly all of its former nuclear weapon sites. The Department of Energy (DoE) began a massive environmental remediation programme, which includes engaging surrounding communities in a future land use planning process. Using the Savannah River site as an example, we show that this process faces large obstacles, especially a legacy of mistrust of the DoE and organizational limitations at the federal and local government scales. These hinder open dialogue about future land use. The authors suggest three planning principles for future land use planning and organizational issues that must be addressed before these can be fruitfully explored.

Planning and the New Depression in the Social Sciences

This paper examines the growth of planning education over the past thirty years in institutions of higher education in the United States Trends in the number of earned degrees granted in the field of City, Community and Regional Planning are compared with nineteen other disciplines Two major patterns emerge. One pattern is led by the social sciences, followed by planning, urban studies, and other fields allied with the social sciences These fields underwent depression in the early 1950s and are now undergoing a new depression The other pattern is led by business and law and followed by engineering, the design disciplines and several others. These have all in recent years been growing Projections of the pool of graduate students and planning’s likely share of that pool over the next decade indicate serious decline in the number of graduates Two major obstacles to recovery from this depression are identified Introduction Planning education m the last several decades has been shaped by broad societal forces that have very significantly altered its nature. The growth of enrollments and the shaping of curricula in the 1960s and early 1970s was the result of a direction set in the late 1930s and throughout the 1940s ’The result has been twofold: (1) the alliance of planning principally with the social sciences, and, (2) the simultaneous relinquishment of technical, engineering and design concerns This transformation was conceived by one generation and implemented by the next, under heavy external pressure to fill jobs and correct a pervasive physical bias in the field. There is a sentiment arising today that the pendulum has swung too far toward the social sciences, that the payoff from the social sciences has been intellectually less than anticipated, and that the focus may now even threaten to undermine the whole planning enterprise.2 New directions in societal interests, educational trends, and planning practice are forcing us to reassess the goals and strategies that bear on the very survival of our insti-

Linking City Planning and Public Health in the United States

The professional fields of planning and public health both arosefrom the Progressive movement of the early twentieth century. The fields share many common concerns, including air and water pollution, disposal of hazardous waste, the sick building syndrome, and the aging of building stock. Yet despite their common historical origins and mutual concerns, a comparison of articles and book reviews published between 1978 and 1990 in theflagship publications of the two professions-the Journal of the American Planning Association and the American Journal of Public Health-suggests only minor overlaps between the twofields today. Similarly, a review of the linkages between planning departments and schools of public health at eleven U.S. universities that have accredited graduate programs in both fields suggests only limited interactions. It is important that the links be strengthened between planning and public health through a common literature, professional interaction, and increased cross-disciplinary education.

The Lessons of John Locke or Hernando de Soto: What if Your Dreams Come True?

Abstract Hernando de Soto has presented the most powerful argument for the extension of property rights since John Lockes revolutionary Two Treatises of Government in 1689. De Soto calls for the legal titling of land for squatters and other illegal occupants of the informal economy on a promise of efficiency (increased productivity of land). However, efficiency arguments, which have dominated recent literature on property law and economics, fall short of an adequate basis for a just doctrine. Drawing on the theories of John Locke, this article addresses the need to understand the rules required to sustain the equity goals of society in the expansion of property ownership. These rules focus on the meaning of property, constraints on its use and accumulation, and delineation of the institutional embeddedness of these rights and obligations. Evidence from the impact of U.S. tax policy on housing illustrates the importance of property rules and their structure.

Private Property in Africa: Creation Stories of Economy, State, and Culture

Pressures to finance and promote economic development throughout Africa are linked to policy efforts to secure land tenure by advaning private property regimes over common property traditions. In this paper, I examine three prominent arguments invoked to eplain, support, or oppose these policies: the story of Scarcity, the story of the Overbearing State, and the story of Traditional Culture. The paper critically examines the claims of each of these stories and argues that while each is useful, none, alone, is adequate. Copeting stories explain or defend competing tenures, much as they do in American proerty debates.

A Multivariate Analysis of Metropolitan Planning

Abstract In an attempt to extend planning theory through empirical resarch, cluster analysis is applied to data on metropolitan planning agencies in a search for “types” of planning. The basic data matrix contains 109 agencies and thirty-six technical studies variables. Three groups of technical studies emerge corresponding to comprehensive land use and transportation planning, capital improvements studies and programming, and a miscellany of “newer” studies. Three types of agencies also emerge, based upon volume of studies produced. Explanation of the output levels of agencies is sought through input and constraint variables. Benefit-cost ratios are calculated for agency types.

Demographic analysis for nuclear power plant siting: A set of computerized models and a suggestion for improving siting practices☆

Abstract Land use and demographic studies required by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission in the siting of nuclear power plants include specification of exclusions areas, low population zones, population center distances, projections of resident populations, and surrounding land uses and transient persons. A computerized projection model designed to meet some of these needs is described. It includes national, state, county and minor civil division components. Related aspects of these required studies are reviewed and critical suggestions are made for improved design of the analyses.

From the Backyard Garden to the Whole U.S.A. A Conversation with Charles W. Eliot, 2nd

Abstract Charles W. Eliot, 2nd, was born on November 5, 1899. He was steered into landscape architecture and city planning by his grandfather along the path of his uncle who had died in the prime of his career as a landscape architect. After graduation from Harvard and a brief practice in Boston, young Eliot went to Washington, D.C., to work for the National Capital Park and Planning Commission, soon serving as its director. In 1933 he became die executive officer of Roosevelts National Planning Board (successively re-named National Resources Board, National Resources Committee, and National Resources Planning Board) where he served until it was abolished by Congress in 1943. Then, after several years in California as a lecturer at UCLA and a planning consultant to various communities and foundations, he returned to Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1954 to teach planning at Harvard as Charles Eliot Professor of Landscape Architecture and later as professor of city and regional planning, and to continue priva...