Unlocking value in property investment and development for urban planning

Planning decisions routinely generate substantial economic value through land use regulation, infrastructure provision, and development rights, yet the translation of these gains into broader societal benefit remains fragmented and uneven. In this collection, we argue that value in urban planning must be understood as a multifaceted and institutionally embedded phenomenon shaped through legal frameworks, financial architectures, and planning practices. While planning scholarship has long examined social, spatial, environmental, and transformative values, and real estate research has focused predominantly on financial valuation and market mechanisms, these bodies of work rarely intersect in ways that allow for a shared understanding of how value is produced, governed, and distributed. The special issue addresses this gap by bringing together contributions that rethink the institutional foundations of value, examine the governance of capital flows and valuation practices, and explore how diverse values are mobilized within planning and development processes. Collectively, the articles demonstrate that value is not merely an outcome generated by markets and subsequently corrected through planning interventions, but a relational process actively constituted through governance arrangements, legal systems, financial conventions, and everyday planning practices. The introduction shifts the focus from narrow, project-based approaches to a broader understanding of planning as a strategic practice that shapes how value is defined, circulated, and redistributed across urban development processes. In doing so, the special issue positions planners not simply as regulators of development, but as active participants in governing the institutional conditions through which urban value is created and mobilized for societal benefit.