This work represents a major innovation in the institutional analysis of cities and their planning, management and governance. Using concepts of transaction costs and property rights, the book shows systematically how urban order evolves as individuals co-operate in cities for mutual gain.

This book represents a major innovation in the institutional analysis of cities and their planning, management and governance. Using concepts of transaction costs and property rights, the work shows systematically how urban order evolves as individuals co-operate in cities for mutual gain. Five kinds of urban order are examined, arising as co-operating individuals seek to reduce the costs of transacting with each other. These are organisational order (combinations of property rights), institutional order (rules and sanctions), proprietary order (fragmentation of property rights), spatial...