DISTRILAND

There is renewed interest in the distribution of property wealth and its socio-economic implications. The current context is indeed marked by rising inequalities and a flexibilization of the tax and regulatory regime. We propose to broaden the field of study of political economy by assessing the socio-legal embedding of land markets in France and Luxembourg, through two case studies: the metropolises of Aix-Marseille and Luxembourg.

The DISTRILAND project will analyze the spatial implications, in terms of housing production or planning, of the interrelationships between inherited land structures, regulatory systems and institutional structures.
Although linked, France and Luxembourg diverge on several points: the concentration of land ownership, its taxation, and the legal treatment of property rights. Luxembourg has undergone industrial and financial revolutions without affecting its land ownership structure, which has been highly concentrated since the 19th century. In the absence of deliberate intervention by public players on these markets, and in the presence of low taxation on land and inheritance, access to land has become a central political issue in the country. In France, despite a higher degree of land regulation, local authorities have contributed to a gradual privatization of land in recent decades, in order to meet housing demand and generate local wealth. The context of budgetary austerity has further reduced financial leeway and led to the disposal of public land.
The socio-legal embedding of land markets thus calls into question the ability of local authorities to regulate land.

The DISTRILAND project will be the first international comparative approach to the spatial, historical and fiscal structure of land ownership. It will be based on a mixed-methods approach combining large-scale micro-data analysis and interviews with actors in the field, thus informing land and tax policies internationally.

The project's methodology will combine quantitative analysis of changes in land holdings (based on cadastral data and land transactions) and analysis of interviews with owners. The main objective of the DISTRILAND project is to empirically design a typology of landowners that takes into account both land holdings and management strategies. The challenge is to understand how the context of commodification and financialization of land markets affects urban development through the renewed strategies of landowners, whether based on conservation (e.g. land retention) or transformation (e.g. property development).