Land in urban debates: Unpacking the grab–development dichotomy

Abstract

On the heels of the rural ‘land grab’ debate, the ongoing urban transition combined with large-scale urban infrastructure investments and land scarcity forces us to also pay more attention to issues of land in urban discussions. Yet how can we conceptualise land-related problems in order to connect and integrate rural and urban debates in overarching discussions of development? In this commentary, we argue for moving beyond the directly visible outcomes and presumed ‘culprits’ of land investments by critically analysing indirect and long-term effects of land acquisitions on people’s livelihoods as well as the differentiation of these effects for different actors. We propose three specific arguments to disentangle the grab–development dichotomy: 1) placing a focus on the sequential chain of effects of displacement; 2) paying more attention to the ambivalent roles and contradictory interests of different actors; and 3) taking the three-dimensional aspects of land development into account.