Densification policy between state and market: strategies of land policy in four European countries

Urban densification has become a central policy goal to deliver much-needed housing while reducing net land take. At the same time there has been a significant shift between the role of the state and the market in how to deliver planning outcomes and the type of regulation to achieve densification. This article investigates recent policy changes to promote densification in England, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland, looking at the role of the state in delivering those outcomes and the type of regulation used. We conclude that in order to achieve densification the state has become more proactive, but this was not necessarily the direct result of the proliferation of new legislation but caused by the use of existing instruments of land policy by municipalities. This article was published open access under a CC BY-NC-ND licence: https://creativecommons.org/licences/by-nc-nd/4.0/ .