"Attention to value capture as a source of public revenue has been increasing in the United States and internationally as some governments experience declines in revenue from traditional sources and others face rapid urban population growth and require large investments in public infrastructure. Privately funded improvements by land-owners can increase the value of their land and property. Public actions, such as investments in infrastructure, the provision of public services, and planning and land use regulation, can also affect the value of land and property. Value capture is a means to realize as public revenue some portion of that increase in value through various revenue-raising instruments. This book, based on the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy's sixth annual land policy conference in May 2011, examines the concept of value capture, its forms, and applications. The first section, on the conceptual framework and history of value capture, reviews its relationship to compensation for partial takings; the long history of value capture policies in Britain and France; and the remarkable expansion of tax increment financing in California. The second section reviews the application of particular instruments of value capture, including the conversion of rural to urban land in China, town planning schemes in India, and community benefit agreements. The third section focuses on ends instead of means and examines the use of value capture by community land trusts to provide affordable housing, the use of land development to finance transit, and the use of various fees to fund airports. The final section explores potential extensions of value capture mechanisms to tax-exempt nonprofits and to the management of state trust lands in the United States."--Publisher's website.

This book focuses on the influence of socio-economic and land-use policies on the commuting problems and quality of life of the poor in Singapore and Hong Kong. It considers the influence of self-organisation: how the mobility of an individual is constituted by structures such as transport systems or socio-economic structural factors, as well as influenced by individual decisions. Where most transport studies focus on the influence of factors such as income inequality, the gender gap, and the built environment, this book fills a gap in paying particular attention to the influence of individual decisions on commuting. Given the prevalence of the former in research, government decision-makers are often constrained by these approaches and fail to understand the commuting problems of the poor. This book argues that the self-organisation approach provides some ideas that are outside the common conceptual framework in conventional transport planning and looks to improve mobility of lower-income commuters. Relevant to social science researchers working in areas such as urban planning and transport, mobility deprivation, and poverty, this book breaks new ground in quality of life studies in the Singapore and Hong Kong contexts.

The world economic landscape has experienced seismic changes in the fifteen years after restoration of sovereignty over Hong Kong from Britain to China. Fortunately the Hong Kong economy has remained steadfast and is still making progress, but public confidence in the governance of the SAR government has declined, and economic and social dissatisfaction have flared. Where should Hong Kong go from here in the face of all kinds of contradictions? Economist Yue Chim Richard Wong provides an analysis of the origins of these contradictions and shares his insights on these issues. All those concerned about Hong Kong’s future should not miss this collection of essays.

HOUSING BOOMS IN GATEWAY CITIES “David Ley examines the development of housing booms, and policies intended to stimulate or limit them. Utilising a comparative approach in five gateway cities, he provides a superb understanding of the politics of booms, lifting the debate beyond narrow housing and real estate studies. This book is required reading for anyone interested in global cities, housing markets, or comparative urbanism.” —Manuel B. Aalbers, Professor of Human Geography, KU Leuven, Belgium “A stellar contribution to housing and its financialisation as central to the capitalist project globally, Housing Booms offers a wonderful window into the ascendancy of the secondary circuit of real estate in Singapore, Hong Kong, Sydney, Vancouver, and London. Critically, through careful, empirically rigorous comparison, an eminent urban social scientist urges us to understand the importance of placing urban housing theoretically.” —Loretta Lees, Director of the Initiative on Cities, Boston University “Mastering a wealth of information and insights from five gateway cities, David Ley provides fresh and inspiring explanation of both common global logics and diverse local trajectories of housing booms in the era of financialisation and asset-based accumulation. A timely and ground-breaking contribution, (re)positioning housing to the centrality pervasively felt in everyday life but largely unacknowledged in mainstream social science.” —George Lin, Chair Professor of Geography, University of Hong Kong In Housing Booms in Gateway Cities, renowned geographer Dr. David Ley delivers a detailed exploration of housing markets in Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney, Vancouver, and London and explains why these gateway cities have seen dramatic increases in residential real estate prices since the 1980s. The author describes how the globalization of real estate has rapidly inflated demand and uncoupled local housing prices from local wages, causing acute problems of affordability, availability, and inequality. The book implicates government policy in massive real estate price inflation, describing a shift from welfare-based to asset-based societies. It also highlights the relatively unique experience in Singapore, where asset-based housing policy has encouraged the dispersion of ownership and accumulation through an increased supply of subsidized leasehold apartments and the regulation of disruptive investment flows. Housing Booms in Gateway Cities is an ideal resource for academics, students and policymakers with an interest in urban geography, sociology, and planning, housing studies, and any of the cities discussed in the book. It is an innovative treatment of housing as a central category in wealth accumulation in urban economies and societies.

This book provides a detailed comparative account of the development of citizenship and civil society in Hong Kong from its time as a British colony to its current status as a special autonomous region of China.

As a book on public policy, this book is unique in addressing explicitly the role of human nature. Only with a good understanding of human nature can policy makers address their foremost needs and anticipate how people may respond to specific designs in policy. This way policy makers can avoid "unintended consequences." The book also provides a new perspective on the meaning of public interest, which is based on intellectual roots dating back to J.S.Mill and more recently Harsanyi and Rawls. Traditionally, economists have referred to either the Hicksian criterion or the Kaldorian criterion as the yardstick to whether a policy is welfare enhancing, not realizing that both of these criteria fail abjectly in producing a convincing test for welfare improvement. This is because ex post, typically some people will gain and some people will lose from any policy. The author argues for an alternative, ex ante welfare increase criterion that is based on how people would assess a policy if they were completely impartial and totally ignored their personal interests. It applies the principles to key policy concerns such as health policy, tort law reform, education and cultural policy, and pension reform. The healthcare reform proposals in the book illustrate the application of the principles. The author proposes a basic protection plan under which standard basic healthcare services are priced the same whether they are provided by public or private caregivers—at levels that can contain both demand side and supply side moral hazard. Annual eligible healthcare expenses are capped to alleviate worries. A "Lifetime Healthcare Supplement" that includes an element of risk sharing adds to patients’ choice and protection without compromising fiscal sustainability.