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This report provides Mayors and other policymakers with a policy framework and diagnostic tools to anticipate and implement strategies that can avoid their cities from locking into irreversible physical and social structures. At the core of the policy framework are the three main dimensions of urban development. · Planning— where the focus is on making land transactions easier, and making land use regulations more responsive to emerging needs especially to coordinate land use planning with infrastructure, natural resource management, and risks from hazards; · Connecting—where the focus is on making a city's markets (for labor, goods, and services) more accessible to neighborhoods in the city and to other cities. Here the focus is also on investing in public transport, and pricing private transport fully; and · Financing— where the focus is on how a city can leverage its own assets to finance new assets for example, through land value capture, establishing creditworthiness for local governments and utilities to access domestic debt and bond markets and how to set clear and consistent rules to attract private investors to create jobs in cities. This report also distills lessons from prototypes urbanization diagnostics which have been piloted to reflect challenges for countries at nascent (Uganda, Vietnam), intermediate (China, India, Indonesia), and mature (Brazil, Colombia, South Korea, Turkey) urbanization. These diagnostics under the World Bank's Urbanization Review program have engaged strategic counterparts, such as those in national ministries of finance and planning, in thinking about policy choices that influence urbanization and city development.

Land-based financing of urban infrastructure is growing in importance in the developing world. Why is it so difficult to finance urban infrastructure investment, when land values typically increase by more than the cost of investment? 'Unlocking Land Values to Finance Urban Infrastructure' examines the theory underlying different instruments of land-based finance, such as betterment levies, developer exactions, impact fees, and the exchange of publicly owned land assets for infrastructure. It provides a wealth of case-study illustrations of how different land-based financing tools have been implemented, and the lessons learned from these experiences. This practical guide is designed to help expand the role of land-based financing in urban capital budgets in a way that strengthens urban infrastructure finance and urban land markets.

Seventy-five percent of the world's poor live in rural areas and most are involved in agriculture. In the 21st century, agriculture remains fundamental to economic growth, poverty alleviation, and environmental sustainability. The World Bank's Agriculture and rural development publication series presents recent analyses of issues that affect the role of agriculture, including livestock, fisheries, and forestry, as a source of economic development, rural livelihoods, and environmental services. The series is intended for practical application, and hope that it will serve to inform public discussion, policy formulation, and development planning. Increased global demand for land because of higher and more volatile food prices, urbanization, and use of land for environmental services implies an increased need for well-designed land policies at the country level to ensure security of long-held rights, to facilitate land access, and to deal with externalities. Establishing the infrastructure necessary to proactively deal with these challenges can require large amounts of resources. Yet with land tenure deeply rooted in any country's history, a wide continuum of land rights, and vast differences in the level of socioeconomic development, the benefits to be expected and the challenges faced will vary across and even within countries, implying a need to adapt the nature and sequencing of reforms to country circumstances. Also, as reforms will take time to bear fruit and may be opposed by vested interests, there is a need to identify challenges and to reach consensus on how to address them in a way that allows objective monitoring of progress over time. Without this being done, the chances of making quick progress in addressing key land policy challenges are likely to be much reduced. The Land Governance Assessment Framework (LGAF) is intended as a first step to help countries deal with these issues. It is a diagnostic tool that is to be implemented at the local level in a collaborative fashion, that addresses the need for guidance to diagnose and benchmark land governance, and that can help countries prioritize reforms and monitor progress over time.

According to 1988 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development figures, Australia raised 9.8% of its total tax revenue from property. There are 8 tax instruments that have been applied by local and state governments on either transactions in housing assets, the holding of housing assets, or leasing of housing to tenants. These taxes are: 1. stamp duty on conveyances, 2. stamp duty on mortgages, 3. stamp duty on leases, 4. land taxes, 5. municipal rates, 6. metroplitan improvement rates, 7. land betterment taxes, and 8. estate, inheritance, and gift taxes. Land taxes and municipal rates are periodic taxes applied to the assessed value of real estate assets owned by individuals or institutions and are the major source of revenue for local government. Valuation procedures are required in order to assess the tax base. The 3 commonly invoked methods of valuation are: 1. unimproved capital value or site value, 2. captial improved value, and 3. assessed annual value.

Structural change is a key driver of rapid growth: countries diversify into new industries, firms learn new things, people move to new locations. Anything that slows this structural change is also likely to slow growth. Because urbanization is one of the most important enabling parallel processes in rapid growth, making it work well is critical. Urbanization's contribution to growth comes from two sources: the difference between rural and urban productivity levels and more rapid productivity change in cities. In the early decades of development, when the majority of the population is still rural, the jump from rural to urban employment makes a big contribution to growth. As cities grow larger, the second effect faster gains in urban productivity - begins to dominate, as it operates on a larger base. Mortgages can improve households' ability to buy decent housing. But finance relaxes demand constraints only. Unless it is accompanied by measures to increase supply, better finance may result in overshooting prices. This volatility can jeopardize macroeconomic stability. In a typical pattern, strong income growth leads to a rapid increase in housing demand. An injection of liquidity from some source, often overseas, may help over stimulate the market, leading to over optimism and a dangerous concentration of wealth in real estate.