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and the establishment of transparent administrativeprocesses at all levels for granting, selling,and leasing of state lands.Strictly Circumscribe Conditions for Expropriationof Land: As transferring land from agricultureto non-agricultural or urban uses is a corollaryof economic development, an important issuethat undermines tenure security in much of thedeveloping world — and which has often causedgreat hardship to former land owners — is thegovernment’s far-reaching ability to expropriateland with real compensation often far below marketrates. The threat of expropriation has servedto undermine tenure security and investment andhas also led to informal sales in anticipation ofexpropriation that often invited corruption andshady property deals involving state agencies.Productivity was impaired as the state apparatushad often neither the means nor the incentivesto invest in or effectively use the land acquired,thereby often leaving the potentially most valuableland undeveloped. One reason for this is that,in many countries, even land for private uses willfirst have to be acquired by the state, somethingthat can greatly increase the transaction costfaced by private investors. Eliminating such rules,constraining expropriation to cases where a narrowlydefined public purpose is at stake, whileallowing land owners or users to negotiate directlywith interested parties in the remainder of thecases (with the possibility to draw on mediation ifneeded) can eliminate a key source of uncertaintyand corruption.Zoning and City PlanningZoning and planning is one of the main causes ofexclusion of the poor from legal and formal cityand peri-urban development processes. On theother hand, the right use of zoning and spatialplanning can become a formidable instrument oflegal empowerment. 135 Although this is perhapsmost commonly a feature of the rural-urban zoneof transition, it is also a feature within urban areas,and within rural areas. 136 Especially changesin use from agriculture to urban residential orcommercial purposes usually multiply the valueof land significantly, and consequently augmentthe potential for abuse. Peri-urban areas needto be better planned if they are to be more effectivein promoting sustainable pro-poor urbandevelopment. The ambit of interventions hasto expand beyond slum upgrading and tenureregularisation to defining the urban developmentframework within which access to land and landdevelopment rights for the poor becomes possible.137 Spatial and urban planning can be a majordriving force behind higher living standards andwealth generation. 138 The relevance for urbanplanning is heightened in the idea that responsibility,incentives and ownership should be alignedto maximise desired ends. 139Eliminate Inappropriate Planning Regulations.Overcoming extra-legality in urban areas will beimpossible without a careful review of planningregulations - some of which, such as minimumlot sizes, were designed with the explicit purposeof segregating property markets. While regulationsmay be introduced with more benevolentgoals, they may nonetheless affect the poor negativelyand, through their impacts on urban forms,be environmentally and socially harmful. Whileit will be dangerous to generalise, in practice theonly reason for the continued existence of harmfulregulations is either limited knowledge onalternatives or the fact that they benefit powerfulvested interest groups who are generally not thepoor.Establish Transparent and Participatory Land UsePlanning: Even if rules are well justified, in manycountries, land use planning follows non-transparentand highly centralised processes. This97