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This chapter examines the history and evolution of land use regulation in the United States. The economic effect and influence on neighborhood composition is considered. The work of political theorists Antonio Gramsci and Michel Foucault is utilized to analyze the practice of zoning in the United States. An overview of the Standard Zoning Enabling Act, which sets the foundation for zoning within the United States, is presented. Michel Foucault’s notion of “disciplinary power” and Gramsci’s theory of “environmental hegemony” are highlighted to elucidate how land use regulations have operated to enhance the social and economic status of some populations, while limiting the opportunities of others. The potential for changing land use polices is also discussed.

In order to succeed in an action under the Equal Pay Act 1970, should the woman and the man be employed by the same employer on like work at the same time or would the woman still be covered by the Act if she were employed on like work in succession to the man? This is the question which had to be solved in Macarthys Ltd v. Smith. Unfortunately it was not. Their Lordships interpreted the relevant section in different ways and since Article 119 of the Treaty of Rome was also subject to different interpretations, the case has been referred to the European Court of Justice.

In 2016, the Chinese central government decentralized the responsibilities of housing market regulation to the municipal level. This paper aims to assess whether the decentralized market regulation is effective.

This study first investigates the fundamental drivers of urban housing prices in China. Taking into consideration the factors driving housing prices, the authors further investigate the effectiveness of decentralized housing market regulation by a pre- and post-policy comparison test using a panel data set of 35 major cities for the years from 2014 to 2019.

The results reveal heterogenous policy effects on housing price growth among cities with a one-year lag in effectiveness. With the decentralized housing market regulation, cities with fast price growth are incentivized to implement tightening measures, while cities with relatively low housing prices and slow price growth are more likely to do nothing or deregulate the markets. The findings indicate that the shift from a centralized housing market regulation to a decentralized one is more appropriate and effective for the individual cities.

Few policy evaluation studies have been done to examine the effects of decentralized housing market regulation on the performance of urban housing markets in China. The authors devise a methodology to conduct a policy evaluation that is important to inform public policy and decisions. This study helps enhance the understanding of the fundamental factors in China’s urban housing markets and the effectiveness of municipal government interventions.

Urban conservation is an integral part of urban development planning and it is incorporated into land use rules and plans. In order to achieve the goals of an ideal heritage conservation policy, there are spatial plans, building codes and relevant regulations that should be well prepared as reference for development projects. Kota Lama Semarang (Old City of Semarang) area has been recognized as part of the origin of the development of Semarang City, the capital city of Central Java. This area has been designated as a cultural heritage area both at the city and national level since 2020. The Heritage City Conservation Program (P3KP) encourages Kota Lama Semarang Area to experience fairly massive development since 2013. On one hand, to control and manage the area, the Semarang City Government issued several official planning documents, i.e. (a) Kota Lama Semarang Area RTBL documents (2003); (b) Kota Lama Semarang Grand Design (2011); and (c) Kota Lama Semarang Site RTBL (2020), which consecutively were used as references of development projects. On the other hand, the results of development projects indicated that there are no coherent physical improvements in the area. The study was conducted to show whether there are consistencies or mismatches between the three planning documents.

This study used a qualitative deductive method with content analysis technique to compare three planning documents, using the predetermined variables.

The results showed that the consistency between the three planning documents was not fully demonstrated, but they are mutually interconnected.

The research focused only on three formal planning documents, for which comparative analysis was undertaken using content analysis to identify consistencies and inconsistencies based on determined 9 variables.

Good planning documents should be consistent, since they are used as development references. Inconsistencies among planning documents produced segmented urban environments in Kota Lama Semarang Area/Site, which are mostly due to the different institutions preparing the documents.

The segmented urban development in the area has reduced the historical and cultural values of the area. Revitalization program that was undertaken has some implication to the sustainability of the local economy.

The paper explores both the consistencies and mismatches among the three planning documents, which have been used as references in implementing development projects in Kota Lama Semarang Area. Failures in maintaining consistencies among documents are supposed to produce inconsistent physical development in the area, unless adjustment to current development has to be made.

Due to greater returns to high skill and desirable amenities, high-skilled workers are increasingly agglomerating in metropolitan areas and form path dependence. This chapter explores whether the land supply policy of China constraining big cities' urban construction land quota strengthens the spatial divergence of human capital. Using city-level land supply data, population census data, and land transaction micro data, we find that the higher the degree of a city's land supply lagging behind land demand, the greater the enlargement effect of the initial share of population with college degrees on the increase in share of population with college degrees. Further research reveals that the main mechanism causing this phenomenon is the rapidly rising housing prices hindering low-skill labor flows to big cities.

Financial assurance rules, also known as financial responsibility or bonding requirements, foster cost internalization by requiring potential polluters to demonstrate the financial resources necessary to compensate for environmental damage that may arise in the future. Accordingly, assurance is an important complement to liability rules, restoration obligations, and other regulatory compliance requirements. The paper reviews the need for assurance, given the prevalence of abandoned environmental obligations, and assesses the implementation of assurance rules in the United States. From the standpoint of both legal effectiveness and economic efficiency, assurance rules can be improved. On the whole, however, cost recovery, deterrence, and enforcement are significantly improved by the presence of existing assurance regulations.

The purpose of this paper is to give a recommendation to the municipalities what local tax/taxes sensu largo (a waste charge or an immovable property tax increased by a local coefficient) are to be collected to achieve expected and necessary incomes and limit the administrative costs.

To reach the aim, it was necessary to analyze the number of municipalities increasing the property tax by the local coefficient and abolishing the charge on communal waste to save money for the waste charges administration. The evidence of municipalities applying the local coefficient was used as a basis for the research. To get the information on charges on communal waste collected in these municipalities with the local coefficient within the past at least five taxable periods, the information from Monitor was used. If there was any such a significant change, then it was necessary to use the bylaws and to do thorough analysis of the reasons.

The hypothesis that a high number of municipalities in the Czech Republic are replacing the charge on communal waste with the local coefficient applicable for the immovable property tax was rejected. In the opinion of the author, the ideal approach is to have just one local tax – immovable property tax. This tax is administered by the state tax office and the revenue should cover the cost of waste management. Adopting only the property tax increased by the local coefficient, it is necessary to explain the benefits to the taxpayers, that is, locals and voters.

The research on the given topic was never done in the Czech Republic, as there is no evidence of local charges collected in individual municipalities.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the system of development controls in the Offinso South municipality. It investigates the challenges to the development control regime.

The paper reviews the land use regulation system in the municipality. The municipality was clustered into four for data collection. Eight neighbourhoods (two from each cluster) were selected from the municipality for the study. In all, 15 properties were sampled via purposive sampling techniques from each of the selected neighbourhoods for data gathering. Self-administered questionnaires were relied on to gather data from the 120 respondents. The property owners were the unit of enquiry.

The paper finds that socio-cultural factors, delays in the planning approval process, negative public perceptions about the planning process and planning officials, lack of official support to developers in curing identified defects in their proposed developments, and unrealistic building regulations are partly responsible for the large-scale violations of development controls in the municipality.

It is noted that the planning authority should focus more on strategies that will facilitate voluntary compliance and less on enforcement. It also notes the need for a review of the building regulations and the purging of the planning system from negative public perceptions and processing delays.

The paper identifies the constraints on the Ghanaian development controls regime.

The Howard Shuttering Contractors case throws considerable light on the importance which the tribunals attach to warnings before dismissing an employee. In this case the tribunal took great pains to interpret the intention of the parties to the different site agreements, and it came to the conclusion that the agreed procedure was not followed. One other matter, which must be particularly noted by employers, is that where a final warning is required, this final warning must be “a warning”, and not the actual dismissal. So that where, for example, three warnings are to be given, the third must be a “warning”. It is after the employee has misconducted himself thereafter that the employer may dismiss.

This paper aims to substantiate the existence of the form of ownership of natural resources (land) in the Russian law, unknown to European legal systems.

Dialectical method, historical method and system analysis method have been used.

The conducted research allows drawing a conclusion that non-delineated state form of ownership of land plots is a unique legal phenomenon caused by the specificity of the transition period of Russia from a totally state economy to a market economy. This inevitably leads to emergence of legal structures unknown to European systems of law and order. This issue has not only a theoretical but also practical nature.

Studies of this problem have never been conducted, neither in Russia nor in European legal science.