Land-development offset policies consist of measures that require compensation to be made for the negative impact of land development on agricultural production, ecological and environmental conservation, and the sustainability of economic and social development. However, when such policies are inappropriately designed, unexpected problems can result. This paper describes certain land-development offset policies that have recently been implemented in China, with a particular emphasis on three such policies: the Balancing Policy, the Linkage Policy, and the Integrated Policy. These well-intentioned environmental policies have led to unexpected ecological, social, and cultural problems. This paper also describes the core of German land-development policy, which features a distinctive compensation system that has been employed since the 1970s, and compares Chinese and German land-development policies to highlight differences in three main areas: policy purposes, governance structures, and fundamental institutions. The comparisons might help explain the unexpected outcomes in China, and they also lead to land-development offset policy recommendations for China in the near future.

Because major transportation infrastructure projects (MTIPs) have significant effects for a sustainable development, the planning modes used for these projects have been a popular topic among scholars and policy makers. However, detailed descriptions and comparisons of planning modes in different countries are still rare. Therefore, this paper first provides a simple analytical framework based on the elements of the planning goal, the planning process, the planning result and the evaluation criteria. Focusing on the hierarchic mode adopted in China, and the democratic participatory mode adopted in Germany, the governance practices used in MTIP planning are clearly shown. Furthermore, by using two airport cases, this paper compares the differences between China and Germany in the realms of preparation, review, coordination, final approval, and planning performance. The main conclusions are: (1) The analytical approach presented in this paper provides an appropriate standard for describing and comparing planning modes for MTIPs; (2) the planning modes in the two countries each have advantages and disadvantages, reflecting the trade-off between ex ante and ex post costs; (3) the comparison between China and Germany may be instructive for both of these countries and for other countries in terms of improving their planning performance in the future.

Airport projects can have a significant impact on sustainable development. In Germany, as in many other developed countries, airport development is confronting a dilemma because, on the one hand, airports are important infrastructural components and, on the other hand, airport development faces strong resistance from local populations and interest groups. Thus, uncertainties and long time periods, up to 20 years from the beginning of planning to breaking ground, are quite normal. To ease airport development in Germany, administrative procedures and public participation were enhanced. Nevertheless, even with improved public participation, siting decisions in the case of Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER) were lengthy as usual and remain controversial today due to the selection of Schönefeld as the site. Against this background, it seems that public participation in the case of the BER site selection did not particularly deliver the hoped-for results, but why? To answer this question, Creighton’s principles of effective public participation are employed as benchmarks. Moreover, the benchmarking indicates that public participation was not effectively applied. Thus, the possible benefits of public participation could not or could only be partly reaped. Furthermore, from a broader politico-economic perspective, the analysis exposes that public participation was just “a small cog in the machine” of the BER site selection process. It seems that other factors had a more substantial influence on the siting decision than public participation and led decision makers, in addition to regular challenges, into a predicament that might have made Schönefeld the only possible siting solution. In this context, different counterfactual scenarios are discussed to show under which circumstances other outcomes might have occurred regarding the BER site selection.