Recentering land use

In this debate, we argue that scholars examining questions of value and exclusion in the planning process would benefit greatly by looking at the legal and spatial processes of land use and property more closely and recognizing the ways that law reflects and shapes social relations of place. We contend that the relationship between planning, property, and land use needs to be taken more seriously in order to challenge the conventional notion of land use as a predetermined, static, and taken for granted aspect of the urban landscape. We aim to open up new avenues for understanding urban processes of valuation and exclusion by examining existing understandings of the relationship between law and land use, and giving evidence for why scholars should pay attention to them. This debate builds on and complements recent debates on property, law, and everyday life in the city, and aims to continue unpacking the black box of land use. It calls for a renewed attention to the socio-legal aspects of the land use/property relationship to better understand urban processes of valorization and exclusion.