Structure and Agency in Land and Property Development Processes: Some Ideas for Research

Abstract

This paper reviews existing approaches to, and research on, land and property development processes. It is argued that while these approaches-institutional analysis, neo-classical location theory and land economics, and Marxist economics-provide useful directions for understanding the development process, they lack the capability to address a fundamental dimension of our understanding of development processes. This is the relation between the way actors behave in deploying resources to realise specific investments, with which much of the real estate literature is concerned, and the broader processes which drive the strategies and interests of the various actors involved. The paper proposes an approach which combines an understanding of structure and agency, focusing on the resources, rules and ideology which actors acknowledge, as a way forward to a richer understanding of land and property development processes. The paper concludes with some key research questions which follow from this perspective.