A politically less contested and financially more calculable urban future

Density techniques and heightened land commodification in Taiwan

Bibliographic Data

ID4139537
AuthorsMargaret Shih (0000-0002-9197-9386, Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, Rutgers University–New Brunswick, New Brunswick, USA, corresponding author), Mi Shih, Ying-Hui Chiang (0000-0002-7516-7134, National Chengchi University)
Year2024
Volume56
Issue6
Pages1753-1770
Publication date2024-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironment and Planning A Economy and Space (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0308-518X • E-ISSN: 1472-3409
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0308518x221128588
OpenAlexW4302027267
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited26

This article examines and makes explicit the co-constitutive relationship between density techniques, their depoliticization effects, and heightened land commodification in Taiwan's acceleration to a real estate-oriented economy. TDR (transfer of development rights) and density bonusing are two almost omnipresent practices in urban land development in Taiwan. We ask how their technocratic approach-using predetermined formulas to bracket density use while almost entirely foreclosing community negotiation-has played a formative role in accelerating land commodification. Using mixed research methods, the case study of Central North in New Taipei City helps lay bare how formulaic density rules enable planners to embed their epistemic assumptions about what constitutes a good city within intensified property development. Mimicking the calculative practices performed by the real estate sector, we use residual valuation methods to estimate the maximum price-lifting effects of 18 real estate development projects. We show that formulaic rules allow density to enter cost-benefit analysis spreadsheets as a profit booster in advance of actual granting of extra density, emboldening aggressive land brokering, buying, and selling, which churn up land prices. We argue that the technical depoliticization generated by TDR and density bonusing has become the most effective catalyst in creating a politically less contested and financially more calculable urban world in which capital's acquisitive appetite for land's monetary value is intensified. We conclude by discussing the implications for how to move density from a domain of technical rules and real estate finance to a politics of land

Commodification · Economics · Economy · Land development · Land use · Negotiation · Political science · Politics · Real estate · Real estate development · Social science · Sociology · Housing Market and Economics · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Law · Urban and Rural Development Challenges · Finance