Although the interaction between planning and the market in urban development has been the subjec... more Although the interaction between planning and the market in urban development has been the subject of extensive research, its treatment in the literature is still problematic and controversial. Issues regarding this interaction remain topical for post-socialist urban planners, who are still lacking sufficient experience with planning in market conditions, especially when it comes to practice. The contribution of this study is that it identifies two practical approaches, through which urban planners can coordinate plans with markets. First, when setting planning goals, planners must critically assess the relationship between these goals and market demand. If market demand is distorted by market deficiencies, planning must look for opportunities to counteract and rectify distortions, but if market demand properly reflects the interests of stakeholders in urban development, planning must critically reassess its definition of the public interest. Second, when developing urban plans, pla...
Current social and economic theory has yet to explain why, despite the many advantages of the mar... more Current social and economic theory has yet to explain why, despite the many advantages of the market mechanism, planning is employed at all levels of market economy. Like other studies, this research proposes an explanation based on the form of property rights; however, it uses specific definitions of market, private planning and collective planning that establish unambiguous links between them and the structure of ownership. Thus, the article supports the position that the employment of planning or market mechanisms in economic and social activities depends solely on the structure of property rights. The contribution of this article is the formulation of two criteria for the allocation of property rights derived from Coase’s seminal works, termed in this text as Coase’s criterion of institutional optimisation and Coase’s market cost criterion. An important aspect of this proposal is the suggestion that Coase’s theory can be a powerful tool with which to study shared/common entitlem...
Urban sprawl has become a topical urban issue first in North America and later in Western Europe.... more Urban sprawl has become a topical urban issue first in North America and later in Western Europe. It turned into a major challenge to urban sustainability. However, sprawl in Western Europe has displayed many specific features different than that in North America and these features are related to the concrete circumstances in the two continents. The social, economic and urban situation in the new European democracies is also quite different and this inevitably has its impact on the forms of sprawl. One of the main characteristics of sprawl is that it is considered to be market-led. More precisely, a major factor is the lack of balance between market trends and planning policy that allows for the market players to determine the use of their plots in suburban locations with little reference to the public interests and issues of sustainability. As the countries in Eastern and South-eastern Europe have already made certain progress on their way to market society, the problems of sprawl ...
Environmentalists believe that the Coasean approach is economically efficient but environmentally... more Environmentalists believe that the Coasean approach is economically efficient but environmentally unsustainable. While acknowledging that this approach is not always sustainable, this paper emphasises its important advantage—the presence of a criterion determining when an activity will/will not lead to an efficient/sustainable outcome. Coase formulated this criterion on what is termed in this paper “Coase’s proviso”—the balance between the net benefits of an institutional change (rearrangement of entitlements) and transaction costs associated with this change. The article also defines the terms “best use”, “second (or next) best use” and “best user”. On this basis, the paper restates Coase’s proviso and argues that there is no inherent contradiction between economic efficiency and environmental sustainability. According to the restated proviso, when the transaction costs associated with the institutional transformation establishing the best use of a resource are lower than the net b...
This research focuses on a substantial gap between theories of institutions and property rights: ... more This research focuses on a substantial gap between theories of institutions and property rights: institutions are accepted as complex social structures, but property rights are generally considered as simple, that is, either private or public. Although usually unacknowledged, this simplified understanding of property rights is actually based on Samuelson’s theory developed six decades ago. According to Samuelson, the inherent characteristics of goods determine whether they are privately or collectively consumed commodities. Although Samuelson does not propose a mandatory unambiguous link between types of consumption and types of ownership, his theory implies that in principle, private goods are consumed and owned privately and public goods are consumed and owned publicly. Thus, in Samuelson’s theory, institutions are redundant. This article maintains that people need institutions and organisations because resources are scarce, and most resources are too expensive for individual use/...
This article examines the obstacles to public participation in a representative democracy and the... more This article examines the obstacles to public participation in a representative democracy and the approaches that can help to overcome these obstacles. Democracy is never perfect because of the inherent difficulties of developing democratic institutions, yet the drawbacks of representative democracy are considerably greater than those of direct democracy. We consider public participation as an element of direct democracy integrated into the structure of representative democracy in order to balance the power of the centre with that of the constituent members of the democratic system. We underscore the role of nomocracy, by which we mean promoting the power of equitable legal and other social rules over the power of the centre. In public participation, the functioning of rules faces greater obstacles than in other forms of democracy. Thus, the professionalism of planners and public administrators is particularly important in formulating these rules; it is even more important when the ...
The paper seeks to explore the role of public administration in urban development in Bulgaria wit... more The paper seeks to explore the role of public administration in urban development in Bulgaria with respect to the socio-economic situation and the current stage of establishment of a democratic, market-based social system. The main areas of study are: • The relevance of functions and powers of the local governments and the local planning authorities (LPA) to the urban market process. For this purpose, the paper examines the level of decentralization of the system of local governance in Bulgaria and, in particular, in the area of urban development. It also investigates the structures, functions and powers of local governments and the local planning authorities. • The level and forms of interaction between public administration and business, and public administration and citizens in the area of urban development. Explorations are based on a study of the roles of the main market players, and the abilities, powers and duties of local governments in the collaboration with them.
Although the interaction between planning and the market in urban development has been the subjec... more Although the interaction between planning and the market in urban development has been the subject of extensive research, its treatment in the literature is still problematic and controversial. Issues regarding this interaction remain topical for post-socialist urban planners, who are still lacking sufficient experience with planning in market conditions, especially when it comes to practice. The contribution of this study is that it identifies two practical approaches, through which urban planners can coordinate plans with markets. First, when setting planning goals, planners must critically assess the relationship between these goals and market demand. If market demand is distorted by market deficiencies, planning must look for opportunities to counteract and rectify distortions, but if market demand properly reflects the interests of stakeholders in urban development, planning must critically reassess its definition of the public interest. Second, when developing urban plans, pla...
Current social and economic theory has yet to explain why, despite the many advantages of the mar... more Current social and economic theory has yet to explain why, despite the many advantages of the market mechanism, planning is employed at all levels of market economy. Like other studies, this research proposes an explanation based on the form of property rights; however, it uses specific definitions of market, private planning and collective planning that establish unambiguous links between them and the structure of ownership. Thus, the article supports the position that the employment of planning or market mechanisms in economic and social activities depends solely on the structure of property rights. The contribution of this article is the formulation of two criteria for the allocation of property rights derived from Coase’s seminal works, termed in this text as Coase’s criterion of institutional optimisation and Coase’s market cost criterion. An important aspect of this proposal is the suggestion that Coase’s theory can be a powerful tool with which to study shared/common entitlem...
Urban sprawl has become a topical urban issue first in North America and later in Western Europe.... more Urban sprawl has become a topical urban issue first in North America and later in Western Europe. It turned into a major challenge to urban sustainability. However, sprawl in Western Europe has displayed many specific features different than that in North America and these features are related to the concrete circumstances in the two continents. The social, economic and urban situation in the new European democracies is also quite different and this inevitably has its impact on the forms of sprawl. One of the main characteristics of sprawl is that it is considered to be market-led. More precisely, a major factor is the lack of balance between market trends and planning policy that allows for the market players to determine the use of their plots in suburban locations with little reference to the public interests and issues of sustainability. As the countries in Eastern and South-eastern Europe have already made certain progress on their way to market society, the problems of sprawl ...
Environmentalists believe that the Coasean approach is economically efficient but environmentally... more Environmentalists believe that the Coasean approach is economically efficient but environmentally unsustainable. While acknowledging that this approach is not always sustainable, this paper emphasises its important advantage—the presence of a criterion determining when an activity will/will not lead to an efficient/sustainable outcome. Coase formulated this criterion on what is termed in this paper “Coase’s proviso”—the balance between the net benefits of an institutional change (rearrangement of entitlements) and transaction costs associated with this change. The article also defines the terms “best use”, “second (or next) best use” and “best user”. On this basis, the paper restates Coase’s proviso and argues that there is no inherent contradiction between economic efficiency and environmental sustainability. According to the restated proviso, when the transaction costs associated with the institutional transformation establishing the best use of a resource are lower than the net b...
This research focuses on a substantial gap between theories of institutions and property rights: ... more This research focuses on a substantial gap between theories of institutions and property rights: institutions are accepted as complex social structures, but property rights are generally considered as simple, that is, either private or public. Although usually unacknowledged, this simplified understanding of property rights is actually based on Samuelson’s theory developed six decades ago. According to Samuelson, the inherent characteristics of goods determine whether they are privately or collectively consumed commodities. Although Samuelson does not propose a mandatory unambiguous link between types of consumption and types of ownership, his theory implies that in principle, private goods are consumed and owned privately and public goods are consumed and owned publicly. Thus, in Samuelson’s theory, institutions are redundant. This article maintains that people need institutions and organisations because resources are scarce, and most resources are too expensive for individual use/...
This article examines the obstacles to public participation in a representative democracy and the... more This article examines the obstacles to public participation in a representative democracy and the approaches that can help to overcome these obstacles. Democracy is never perfect because of the inherent difficulties of developing democratic institutions, yet the drawbacks of representative democracy are considerably greater than those of direct democracy. We consider public participation as an element of direct democracy integrated into the structure of representative democracy in order to balance the power of the centre with that of the constituent members of the democratic system. We underscore the role of nomocracy, by which we mean promoting the power of equitable legal and other social rules over the power of the centre. In public participation, the functioning of rules faces greater obstacles than in other forms of democracy. Thus, the professionalism of planners and public administrators is particularly important in formulating these rules; it is even more important when the ...
The paper seeks to explore the role of public administration in urban development in Bulgaria wit... more The paper seeks to explore the role of public administration in urban development in Bulgaria with respect to the socio-economic situation and the current stage of establishment of a democratic, market-based social system. The main areas of study are: • The relevance of functions and powers of the local governments and the local planning authorities (LPA) to the urban market process. For this purpose, the paper examines the level of decentralization of the system of local governance in Bulgaria and, in particular, in the area of urban development. It also investigates the structures, functions and powers of local governments and the local planning authorities. • The level and forms of interaction between public administration and business, and public administration and citizens in the area of urban development. Explorations are based on a study of the roles of the main market players, and the abilities, powers and duties of local governments in the collaboration with them.
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Papers by Aleksandar Slaev