Land Policy in Latin America with Martim Smolka

This week we are talking to Martim Smolka, the man who has been the director of the Latin American and Caribbean program at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy since it was made, 27 years ago. This is no minor thing: four of our guests on this podcast have worked or published with the Lincoln Institute, and its impact on Latin American land policy is profound - Martim has truly played an important role in the history of land policy in Latin American cities. In this episode, Flavia Leite and I talk with Martim about the Georgist theoretical underpinnings of progressive land policy, the history of these policies in Latin American cities, and why TIF may well be understood as the “anti-christ” of land value capture.

On the subject of TIF, check out Flavia and Bridget Fisher's critical analysis of the camouflaged risks and costs of TIF in Hudson Yards that we mention in the episode: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0264275122001007

Martim is a Brazilian economist, with a Ph.D. in Regional Science from the University of Pennsylvania (1980). He was the director of the Program on Latin America and the Caribbean at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy for 27 years. At the LILP he developed (and lectured in) many educational programs for high-level public officials, members of academia, NGOs leaders and other professionals throughout Latin America.

Flávia is a PhD student in City & Regional Planning at UC Berkeley. Her research interest revolves around the relationship between formal and informal housing markets, with a specific focus on housing financialization, access to credit, and housing policy in Latin America.