Understanding land, land use rights and land policies through the land-labour-urbanization nexus. Mechanisms of urbanization in Flanders, Greece and Italy.

Planetary urbanization is creating a sense of urgency over seemingly unstoppable and unsustainable land consumption in Flanders, Europe and the world. Unexpectedly, the distribution of land rights, as one of its main drivers, appears to be insufficiently understood in its full complexity. This research will address this gap, by focusing on the institutionalization of land use, land use rights, land reform and urbanization. For this, purpose, the research will mobilize an innovative analytical framework, combining theories of both law and urban planning, more specifically a Lockean inspired land-labour theory and critical institutionalist planning theory, complemented with state of art theories on the commons. Through this framework mechanisms of urbanization land allocation in Flanders, Greece and Northern Italy will be analyzed as case studies. The research aims to explore how land and labour are connected, and how this connection is institutionalized in regional urbanization patterns. The research will reanimate the theoretical debate on urbanization as the institutionalization of productivist behaviour. It will give insights in how bottom-linked cooperative movements succeed (or not) in reconnecting land and labour, imbue this connection into land governance dynamics, and foster socio-ecologically sustainable urbanization.

Keywords:HABITAT MANAGEMENT

Disciplines:Urban and regional geography

Project type:Collaboration project