Land based financing LBF is a method in which can be used to obtain and collect the needed capital for urban infrastructure projects through the sale, lease, or participation of the public lands with developers of lands owners. However, the value of public lands is being inclemently increased as a result of the governmental investment in infrastructure. Accordingly, LBF considers an approach of land value capturing. This would provide part or even all the needed financing for these kinds of projects without depending on the general budgets of countries or on the low income citizens.

However, Egypt, Alike many other countries, uses this financing approach in new cities in order to provide all the needed utilities. Despite the tremendous success of this financing approach in many international examples, the current Egyptian used policies to capture the increment in public lands value has caused many negative risks and threats. The international examples include Australia, Netherlands, Sweden, Israel, Finland, Singapore, Russia, USA, Poland, China, Turkey, India, South Africa, Philippines, and Ethiopia. Some of these international pioneering cases have presented effective policies that have proven their ability to face unexpected negative risks. However, not all of the international cases are similar to the Egyptian circumstances. Only the Chinese model is similar to the Egyptian model with very few differences as will be illustrated later.

The research problem is that despite the success of this financing approach in many international examples, it has been causes many negative risks locally in Egypt. Accordingly, exploring the feasibility of neutralizing negative risks of this approach would help to unlock the comprehensive potentialities of it, avoid and eliminate any of the potential threats, and neutralize the already taken-place negative impacts.

The main objective on this research is to generate, derive, and deduce a public land management framework for this financing approach in the Egyptian new cities based on the Chinese experience which unlock the full potentialities, eliminate risks, and neutralize the already occurred negative impacts of this financing approach. In order to achieve the previously mentioned objective, the research methodology includes literature review and comparative qualitative analysis of some pioneering cases in China in an attempt to deduce a set of criteria that eliminate any potential risks and unlock the comprehensive potentialities of this financing approach. Accordingly, the research structure will be divided into two parts; the literature review part and the Chinese model analysis. The first part will include 1) land based financing definition, justification, and its methods, 2) revision of the failure and success stories of this financing approach in Egypt, and 3) the land value increment determines. The second part will include 1) the Chinese model selection criteria, 2) analysis of pioneering cases studies in China, and 3) the management framework deduction.

By reviewing literature, a number of published papers and reports introduce many negative impacts of using land based financing in Egyptian new cities that have affected negatively on all sectors of investments and business as well as have hinged the urban and economic growth.

In 2006, the World Bank investigated the influence of the public land management policies in Egypt and investments. The study is based on analyzing the used policies in Egypt and their impacts on investment in various sectors including industrial manufacturing, real estate development, tourism, and agriculture. It Is has been concluded that the used management policies in Egypt are causing many negative impacts on investments in all sectors. Many factors have caused these negative impacts including the governmental and institutional laws, procedures, restrictions, land location, building permits, and utility connections(The World Bank, 2006). In 2008, it stated that Egyptian government does not fully benefit from the increased land value resulted from public investment in infrastructure. The study is based on the revision and analysis of recent studies of Egypt’s urban sector. It has been concluded that the used public land management policies must be improved to reduce land speculation and to allow the government to capture the increment in land value instead of the private sector and landowners. Furthermore, the government must adopt a decentralization concept allowing for local government to participate in steering the collected revenues from the public land management (The World Bank, 2008).

Hegazy et al suggested that a total reform of the land management policies used in Egyptian new cities is needed. The study is based on the analysis of 6^th of October new city through interviewing academic staff including professional planners and university staff. The authors concluded that many factors must be taken into consideration in new cities in order to achieve sustainable development including new cities location, public transit infrastructure, public land sale sequence, land coding, and accessibility (Hegazy & Moustafa, 2013).

Tadamun initiative argued that the Egyptian new cities did not succeed in realizing their target populations. In this paper, the new cities population growth rates national wide have been analyzed and compared. It has been concluded that the revenues from the public land sale are way less than the governmental spending on infrastructure. In addition, the new cities are suffering from the lack of suitable infrastructure and services. Furthermore, the real estate prices are higher than what average citizens can afford (TADAMUN, 2015).

In 2017, research carried by Meselhy, he argued that the Egyptian real estate market may be suffering from a bubble that will burst soon. The study is based on comparing the real estate conditions in Egypt and in USA. The author has concluded that the real estate bubble symptoms that had happened in USA causing the bubble to burstare existed in the Egyptian market. The author recommended that the decision makers in Egypt must take actions to avoid the bubble burst in Egypt (Meselhy, 2017).

The previous studies discuss and elaborate the LBF experiences locally as well as their negative impacts (see Table 1). The usage of this mechanism locally in the Egyptian new cities has caused many negative impacts on investments in all sectors as well as fluctuations to business and unsustainability. The reduction in investments, the high living costs in new cities, high housing prices, low demands on public lands, real estate bubble, and the low outcomes of public land sale are all resulted from the unsuitable policies of using publicly-owned lands as assets for urban infrastructure financing. In addition, the papers have concluded that the public land management policies in Egypt must be a subject of dissection, modification, and reformation since these policies are causing negative risks on all aspects of life; social, economic, urban development, investment, and quality of life.

Using public lands as assets can provide the required revenues in short time with simple administrative procedures when being compared with the other two LVC approaches. However, the other two LVC approaches are being characterized by:

On the other hand, LBF has a wide base of contributors which enable it to collect revenues in short period through the direct public land sale or lease. In addition, LBF needs vacant publicly-owned lands in order to work effectively. As a result, the Egyptian new cities constitute a fertile example to use this financing approach. Furthermore, the LBF approach is being used in many international examples effectively, accordingly, the use of its methods themselves is acceptable, but rather their application in some local cases local new cities in Egypt is the problem. As a result, this financing approach has very good potentialities under certain conditions which will be identified, derived, and deduced of the qualitative analysis of the Chinese model.

There are about three main technique of the land-based financing; the sale of public lands, the lease of public lands, and the grant or participation of public lands with developers in exchange for other benefits. These techniques are not fixed and they can be modified based on each example circumstances and conditions (Peterson G. , 2009) (The World Bank, 2006).

On the other hand, LBF has a wide base of contributors which enable it to collect revenues in short period through the direct public land sale or lease. In addition, LBF needs vacant publicly-owned lands in order to work effectively. As a result, the Egyptian new cities constitute a fertile example to use this financing approach. Furthermore, the LBF approach is being used in many international examples effectively, accordingly, the use of its methods themselves is acceptable, but rather their application in some local cases local new cities in Egypt is the problem. As a result, this financing approach has very good potentialities under certain conditions which will be identified, derived, and deduced of the qualitative analysis of the Chinese model.

There are about three main technique of the land-based financing; the sale of public lands, the lease of public lands, and the grant or participation of public lands with developers in exchange for other benefits. These techniques are not fixed and they can be modified based on each example circumstances and conditions (Peterson G. , 2009) (The World Bank, 2006).

Using public lands as assets can provide the required revenues in short time with simple administrative procedures when being compared with the other two LVC approaches. However, the other two LVC approaches are being characterized by:

Land considers one of the four production factors. The other three factors are capital, entrepreneurship and labor. In order to use lands as assets, its nature must be described and its value determents must be identified and illustrated.

Many countries have used public lands as an asset for urban infrastructure financing including Australia, Netherlands, Sweden, Israel, Finland, Singapore, Russia, USA, Poland, China, Turkey, India, South Africa, Philippines, and Ethiopia (Nystrim, 2007)(Peterson G. , 2009). Some of these international pioneering cases have presented effective policies that have proven their ability to face unexpected negative risks. However, Australia, Netherlands, Sweden, Israel, Finland, Singapore, Russia, USA, and Poland are classified by having very high human development indicators according to 2017 statistics (United Nations Developemnt Programme, 2017). These indicators include the Human Development Index (HDI), the Inequality-Adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI), the Gender Development Index (GDI), the Gender Inequality Index (GII), and the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI). Accordingly, it is no use of comparing such cases with the Egypt since they are a lot advanced (economically, ideologically, culturally, and socially) and in order to create a public land asset management framework that is feasible and applicable in the Egyptian new cities, the cases that will be analyzed must be similar to the Egyptian new cities circumstances. The cases that are similar or close to the Egyptian human development indicators according to 2017 statistics are China, India, Ethiopia, South Africa, Philippines, and Turkey.

However, not all of the international cases are similar to the Egyptian circumstances. The usage of public land in Turkey, Philippines, and South Africa is based mainly on old properties sale within the inner urban fabric of cities’ centers and it is not used as a primary financing source (Peterson G. , 2009). In addition, the usage of public lands in India is based on acquiring land from private individuals by law force then reuses them which resulting many conflicts between government and landowners. In addition, this mechanism is being affected heavily by political considerations (Raghuram & Sundaram, 2009). As for Ethiopia, all reviewed published papers within the literature review have highlighted that its policies are in deep need for reformation (Yirga, 2014). Accordingly, only the Chinese model is similar to the Egyptian model with very few differences since 1) they are close to each other in the HDI, 2) the government owns the lands, and 3) they use this financing mechanism as a primary way of financing (see Table 4).

The Chinese model consists of two polar; all the Chinese cities and Honk Kong. Each of these two polar has its unique policies. Despite Hong Kong follow China administratively, it has its own laws and policies. In facts, Honk Kong has used public land as an asset for infrastructure financing before all China cities by about 138 years. Accordingly, Hong Kong has a lot of experience than all the Chinese cities and considers the most successful case worldwide in using public lands as an asset for urban infrastructure financing (Nystrim, 2007).

The Public land asset management framework consists of three main parts; the threats analysis, the public land management criteria, and the management program application feasibility (see Figure 3).

The research problem is that despite the success of land based financing in some Egyptian cases, it has been monitored that many other cases have been exposed to set of financial instability risks. Accordingly, studying the feasibility of eliminating these risks of the land-based financing would help in unlocking the full potentialities of using the land-based financing, avoidance and\or elimination of any potential risks in the future, and neutralize the already occurred negative impacts of this financing approach. The main objective on this research is to generate, derive, and deduce a public land management framework for this financing approach in the Egyptian new cities based on the Chinese experience which would unlock the full potentialities, eliminate risks, and neutralize the already occurred negative impacts of this financing approach.

Many issues have been resulted from the land-based financing unsuitable policies adopted by the Egyptian government in many cases. The reduction in investments, the high living costs in new cities, high housing prices, low demands on public lands, real estate bubble, and the low outcomes of public land sale are all resulted from the unsuitable policies of using publicly-owned lands as assets for urban infrastructure financing. The public land management policies in Egypt must be a subject of dissection, modification, and reformation since these policies are causing negative risks on all aspects of life; social, economic, urban development, investment, and quality of life.

However, Lands are one of the four production elements. Its value is being determined mainly by the market forces of supply and demands. Whenever the demands on lands are gotten higher, the prices would incrementally increase and vice versa. However, demands on lands are being affected heavily by many factors. These factors are development regulation, accessibility, social, cultural, and demographic factors, physical attributes of lands and infrastructure, and land speculation.

Many countries use public lands as assets for urban infrastructure financing including Egypt, Australia, Netherlands, Sweden, Israel, Finland, Singapore, Russia, USA, Poland, China, Turkey, India, South Africa, Philippines, and Ethiopia. However, it has been found that the Chinese model is the ideal comparative to the Egyptian model since it is the closest to the Egyptian development index, it has similar circumstances, and it has been the subject of many published researches according to the literature review.

By analyzing many Chinese cases, a set of effective policies have been deduced. The policies include 1) creating mixed-uses high-density compact residential neighborhoods that encourage walkability and cycling, 2) creating cities in central locations, accessible by public transit, and based on multi-economic base, 3) integration between land value capturing and public private partnership as well as banks, 4) land leasing to developers only instead of land sale for individuals, 5) intensive development of lands around surface important infrastructure paths and nodes, 6) integration between listing auction and tender auction, 7) the existence of a single central authority that manage public lands, 8) moving state owned enterprises (SOE) and municipality’s administrative buildings from the central location in the city centers to new locations, and 9) adopting demand-oriented model during crisis.

As a result, a public land asset management framework has been deduced. It is divided into three main stages; 1) the threats analysis stage that concerns with threats identification and assessment in order to identify their severity and then the root causes deduction, 2) the public land management criteria stage that concerns with the mitigation strategies generation based on the land, financing process, and stakeholder management criteria derived from the cases effective policies, and 3) management program application feasibility stage that concerns with the local regulations and laws analysis in comparison with the mitigation strategies.

In conclusion, using land-based financing effectively for urban infrastructure financing and with the right and suitable policies and procedures would achieve the governmental economic, social, urban development, and sustainability objectives while keeps the potential financial risks at their lowest levels. This would allow the government to provide the all the needed infrastructure and to create and construct new communities without bearing any economic burdens and without depending on low-income groups to finance the national urban development and expansions strategies.