Property Regimes in Territorial Competition

This paper aims to identify the institutional structure and development of property regimes in different territories of the European Union and the United States. More particularly, this research wants to look at the contribution of the institutional structure of property regimes to the competitive performance of cities and urban regions and the implications for spatial planning. Though it seems clear that the property market will influence urban competitiveness directly through the provision of suitable accommodation for economic activity and indirectly through its cumulative contribution to the built environment, the role of the property market in the urban development process has largely been ignored or it has been regarded as relatively unproblematic by planners (Keogh and D’Arcy, 1999). Here, European research contrasts with work done in the United States where property has been given a more formal role in urban economic research and policy practice, like Logan and Molotch’s (1987) concept of Growth Machines. The Growth Machine and its, mainly Marxists proponents, symbolizes the political-ideological nature of property as a way to organize societies. In addition to Keogh and D’Arcy’s rather market centered-conception of property