The Centre for Enterprise, Markets and Ethics (CEME) is pleased to announce the publication of Private Planning and the Great Estates: Lessons from London by John Kroencke.

The publication covers the operation of the large urban landowners in inner London beginning in the 17th century as they developed new areas of London. Large aristocratic landlords like the Grosvenors and Cadogans retained ownership of the underlying land as it was developed via leasehold development. After a set period of time, leases would end and landowners would have unified control. Kroencke shows how this system included planning functions both at the time of conception and more importantly over time via private law restrictions and retained ownership. He argues that these functions were done with an eye to the market and because of the scale of the landholdings, the great estates were able capture spillover effects that more piecemeal development did not. Rather than maximizing the value of any one plot of land, the estates were maximizing over of a larger area (and time). This meant that the great estates had an interest and capacity to provide public goods (like garden squares) and prevent negative externalities. 

It is available in a web-friendly form separated by section starting with the Introduction.

A PDF copy can be found here. A hardcopy of the publication can be ordered by contacting CEME’s offices at office@theceme.org

It has also been split into a Substack series which is available here.

A launch event was held in July 2023. 

Coverage of Private Planning and the Great Estates:

The best study available online Works in Progress

As John Kroencke explains in his excellent recent monograph, Private Planning and the Great Estates, many of those “graceful suburbs”, beloved by residents, were in large part built through leasehold — the very ogre the Housing Secretary’s proposed legislation purports to slay. The Critic

The reasons for London’s comparative beauty in residential architecture to, say, New York’s, are myriad and beyond simple illustration, but one compelling explanation is the strength of private landholders in the capital, who during crucial eras of development wielded considerably more power than either the state or the Crown. We owe London’s formidably memorable terraces to the Grosvenors, Cadogans, Portmans, Bedfords, and other illustrious families who constructed leasehold properties with an eye to posterity rather than the quick flip. In Private Planning and the Great Estates: Lessons from London, John Kroencke, a senior research fellow at the Oxford-based Centre for Enterprise, Markets and Ethics, explores the nature of London’s traditional housing market and draws lessons that may be useful today. The New Criterion