What Role Does Planning Have in the Creation of Ecosystem Service Markets? Evidence from Two Cases in Oregon

Abstract

Ecosystem service markets (ESMs) facilitate the buying and selling of credits that represent specific environmental improvements, like a reduction in atmospheric carbon dioxide or a waterborne pollutant, such as phosphorous or nitrogen. The popularity of this institution has the potential to change land-use planning, especially at the regional level. This comparative analysis of two prominent ESMs in Oregon finds that these institutions can severely restrict opportunities for public participation in land-use decision making, reduce the transparency of measurement technologies used to target restoration activities, and prioritize privately owned land outside of urban areas for restoration investments, thereby limiting public access to green spaces.

The Rule of Choice: Frames and Overflows in the History of New York City Roadway Planning

“…The positive project of the individual choice framework has neither engendered popular support for market-like governance, nor been particularly effective on its own terms (Muller 2018;Shore and Wright 2008;Strathern 2000;van Maasakkers 2021;Walzer 2015;West 2017).…”

“…The market planning, that is the focus of this article and gains popularity in the 1980s, relies on technologies to create conditions theorized in microeconomics. Other, contemporaneous examples include housing voucher programs, carbon markets, school choice, Federal Communications Commission’s bandwidth auctions, and ecosystem service markets (van Maasakkers 2021).…”