Extract

Fred E. Foldvary ‘Creative’ means both innovative and productive of greater value, production being the creation of economic value. Voluntary urban planning occurs when individuals are freely able to create: to design and operate their own buildings, environments and actions. Voluntary planning exists with contractual communities, which include both associations of co-owners and proprietary communities with renters. Purely voluntary development occurs when there is no imposed zoning and land-use restrictions; instead, covenants and easements provide flexible land-use agreements. Voluntary planning would seek to maximize the community land rent, which in turn provides an efficient source of funding for its collective goods, in contrast to distortionary taxation. Decentralized contractual development and governance would enable entrepreneurs, associations and proprietors to fully explore and apply their creativity to both shape and satisfy the desires of the household and business consumers. VOLUNTARY ACTION AND PLANNING Human action is voluntary in the absence of coercive harm, and when there is no restriction or imposed cost on peaceful and honest planning and human action. ‘Harm’ means, in this context, an invasion into the domain of others, excluding what may be merely disagreeable due to the recipients’ beliefs and values. Hence, harm is distinct from offences that are displeasing but are not invasions (Foldvary, 1980). A plan is a design and foundation for a construction or action. A building plan is the blueprint or map from which an edifice is constructed. A town or urban plan is a design for the physical elements of a city such...