Private Sector-led Urban Development Projects: Comparative Insights from Planning Practices in the Netherlands and the UK

Abstract

Dutch planning practice in recent decades witnesses the emergence of private sector-led urban development projects. Such projects are ‘led’ by property developers and ‘facilitated’ by local planning authorities aimed to realize both planning and market objectives. However, remarkably little academic attention has been paid to how public and private actors decisively organize and manage these projects in practice. This paper explores the roles planners and developers perform by generating empirical lessons from Dutch and UK planning practices. The findings are of importance to planners and planning theory, as the current social-economic circumstances require them to redefine their roles in urban development.