Planning and the making of a propertied landscape

Abstract

Although property is a basic ingredient of planning, its repercussions on the profession have rarely been considered. Building on the critical analysis of property, I argue that planning is giving in to the “property effect,” the unquestioned assumption that natural and built landscapes are propertied. Looking specifically at one case-study of land-use planning in Tibneen (Lebanon), I show planning interventions replicate inequalities embedded in property relations, maintain the dominance of propertied representation of the landscape, and limit possible claims over natural and built landscapes to those formulated within the framework of the ownership model. Consequently, land-use planning determines the possible futures of particular towns and regions through the institutional structures of the property regimes in place and within the historically and geographically contingent political-economies where these regimes operate.