Every day millions of people around the world spend their hard-earned income improving houses they do not officially own or legally occupy. The vast majority are poor householders in urban areas of the South, where, in some cities, more than half the population lives in various types of unauthorized housing. As land in urban areas becomes more expensive and globalization accelerates the commercialization of urban land markets, people are forced to occupy unused government land, or purchase agricultural land and build a house without permission - activities that urban authorities are often seeking to prevent. Land, Rights and Innovation examines the complex issues surrounding land tenure, and the challenges they present for urban planners in the South and in the transition economies of Eastern Europe. Based on extensive research, the book brings together a diverse range of examples from 17 countries where the authorities, non-governmental organizations or communities have evolved practical, innovative approaches to providing tenure for the urban poor. These widen the choices available for residents, encourage local investment to reduce poverty and facilitate the development of more equitable and efficient urban land markets. The inclusion of a chapter examining the legal issues of security of tenure, as well as an introduction and a conclusion summarizing the way forward, makes this book of value to all those responsible for formulating and implementing urban land tenure policies in the rapidly changing and expanding cities in the South and transition economies.

The importance of good land governance to strengthen women s land rights, facilitate land-related investment, transfer land to better uses, use it as collateral, and allow effective decentralization through collection of property taxes has long been recognized. The challenges posed by recent global developments, especially urbanization, increased and more volatile food prices, and climate change have raised the profile of land and the need for countries to have appropriate land policies. However, efforts to improve country-level land governance are often frustrated by technical complexities, institutional fragmentation, vested interests, and lack of a shared vision on how to move towards good land governance and measure progress in concrete settings. Recent initiatives have recognized the important challenges this raises and the need for partners to act in a collaborative and coordinated fashion to address them. The breadth and depth of the papers included in this volume, all of which were presented at the World Bank s Annual Conference on Land Policy and Administration, illustrate the benefits from such collaboration. They are indicative not only of the diversity of issues related to land governance but, more importantly, highlight that, even though the topic is complex and politically challenging, there is a wealth of promising new approaches to improving land governance through innovative technologies, country-wide policy dialogue, and legal and administrative reforms. The publication is based on an on-going partnership between the World Bank, the International Federation of Surveyors, the Global Land Tool Network and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization provide tools that can help to address land governance in practice and at scale. It is our hope that this volume will be of use to increase awareness of and support to the successful implementation of innovative approaches that can help to not only improve land governance, but also thereby contribute to the well-being of the poorest and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

This book addresses challenges that new technologies and the big data revolution pose to existing regulatory and legal frameworks. The volume discusses issues such as blockchain and its implications for property transactions and taxes, three (or four) dimensional title registration, land use and urban planning in the age of big data, and the future of property rights in light of these changes. The book brings together an interdisciplinary collection of chapters that revolve around the potential influence of disruptive technologies on existing legal norms and the future development of real estate markets. The book is divided into five parts. Part I presents a survey of the current available research on blockchain and real estate. Part II provides a background on property law for the volume, grounding it in fundamental theory. Part III discusses the changing landscapes of property rights while Part IV debates the potential effects of blockchain on land registration. Finally the book concludes with Part V, which is devoted to new technological applications relevant to real estate. Providing an interdisciplinary perspective on emerging technologies that have the potential to disrupt the real estate industry and the regulation of it, this book will appeal to a broad audience, consisting of scholars, policy-makers, practitioners, and students, interested in real estate, law, economics, blockchain, and technology policy.

This handbook provides academics and students with a comprehensive and holistic understanding of the phenomenon of innovation.

This Special Issue provides an insight, collated from 26 articles, focusing on various aspects of the Fit-For-Purpose Land Administration (FFPLA) concept and its application. It presents some influential and innovative trends and recommendations for designing, implementing, maintaining and further developing Fit-For-Purpose solutions for providing secure land rights at scale. The first group of 14 articles is published in Volume One and discusses various conceptual innovations related to spatial, legal and institutional aspects and its wider applications within land use management. The second group of 12 articles is published in Volume Two and focuses on case studies from various countries throughout the world, providing evidence and lessons learned from the FFPLA implementation process.

This interdisciplinary volume illuminates housing's impact on both wealth and community, and examines legal and policy responses to current challenges. Also available as Open Access.

The process of user-centered innovation: how it can benefit both users and manufacturers and how its emergence will bring changes in business models and in public policy. Innovation is rapidly becoming democratized. Users, aided by improvements in computer and communications technology, increasingly can develop their own new products and services. These innovating users—both individuals and firms—often freely share their innovations with others, creating user-innovation communities and a rich intellectual commons. In Democratizing Innovation, Eric von Hippel looks closely at this emerging system of user-centered innovation. He explains why and when users find it profitable to develop new products and services for themselves, and why it often pays users to reveal their innovations freely for the use of all.The trend toward democratized innovation can be seen in software and information products—most notably in the free and open-source software movement—but also in physical products. Von Hippel's many examples of user innovation in action range from surgical equipment to surfboards to software security features. He shows that product and service development is concentrated among "lead users," who are ahead on marketplace trends and whose innovations are often commercially attractive. Von Hippel argues that manufacturers should redesign their innovation processes and that they should systematically seek out innovations developed by users. He points to businesses—the custom semiconductor industry is one example—that have learned to assist user-innovators by providing them with toolkits for developing new products. User innovation has a positive impact on social welfare, and von Hippel proposes that government policies, including R&D subsidies and tax credits, should be realigned to eliminate biases against it. The goal of a democratized user-centered innovation system, says von Hippel, is well worth striving for. An electronic version of this book is available under a Creative Commons license.