The Community Land Trust (CLT) is an increasingly important strategy for addressing affordability of land and housing for low- to moderate-income residents of communities throughout the United States. CLTs are generally non-governmental, nonprofit organizations which acquire land and hold it in trust for the benefit of the local community. They provide opportunities for residents below a certain income threshold to lease the land and buy or rent affordable housing, create community gardens, and/or practice sustainable agriculture and forestry.

In the past 40 years, the nationwide network of CLTs has grown to over 200 organizations. The CLT model holds great promise for meeting affordable housing and land needs in communities around the world. This report explores the CLT concept and history, explains how it works, and offers a series of successful CLT case studies in urban and rural areas.

Japanese fiscal system places a high premium on tax and expenditure harmonization and on the control by higher level governments. Over the past decades, Japan has developed a robust system of decentralized fiscal system. The fiscal system has both positive and negative experiences and lessons for the rest of the world.

This report focuses on the cooperative manner in which revenue decentralization has occurred and the way in which intergovernmental transfers have been structured. It also addresses issues such as dealing with soft budget constraints and establishing true accountability of local government to their constituency. Against these background, recent reform initiatives, trinity reform and mass amalgamation, try to address the negative side of Japan’s intergovernmental fiscal relations.

This is about the impact of climate change on urban residents in Colombia.

The report covers three basic issues: property tax legislation and practice, the significance and magnitude of property tax revenue, and the prospects of property taxation in the three East African countries - Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. 

Urban competitiveness has become one of  the central issues in public policy today. This has long been the case for cities (taken to refer both to cities and urban regions) in the industrialized countries, especially during the past three decades. The study of urban competitiveness is central to the achievement of the development goals each population sets for itself.

This report concludes with a set of policy suggestions to guide local leaders who choose to take up the challenge of enhancement of the competitiveness of their city.

Rapid urbanization in Africa threatens disaster if it just multiplies the problems of overcrowding, squalor, destitution and degradation. However, it could become a transformative force for higher productivity, entrepreneurial dynamism and rising prosperity. The report discusses the new mood of optimism about Africa's economic prospects and highlights the need to align economic growth and urbanization agendas.

This guide introduces the infrastructure development needs in developing countries. It introduces different models for infrastructure and basic services. It further analyses innovative financing approaches to infrastructure and basic services. It offers recommendations for infrastructure and basic services financing. 

This publication is a collection of case studies which demonstrate successful approaches to small town development. The cases were screened for evidence that either the development strategy was successful, in economic, social, civic and/or environmental terms or that the strategy represented community economic development innovation (first or early use of a particular practice) or was distinct (unique among the alternatives for addressing a particular problem) within the local context.

This report examines the economic role of cities. It illustrates the important contributions of cities to national economic development and poverty reduction. It looks at the agglomeration economies, city clusters, city regions and mega city regions.

Following a widely used structure for describing property tax systems, this report provides a survey of European property tax regimes. Distinguishing the various other categories of taxes on property, it focuses on recurrent taxes on immovable property. It analyzes differences in the utilization of property taxes across the countries in Europe.

It discusses fiscal arrangements, including the power to tax property, revenue assignments, and how tax rates are determined. It describes such design features as who is responsible for paying recurrent taxes on immovable property, which categories of property are taxable, and the basis for the tax. Strategies for providing tax relief are discussed. It discusses administrative arrangements generally and provides comparative detail on cadastral and valuation systems.