Mi Shih, Ph.D., associate professor and director of the Urban Planning and Policy Development Program, has received the 2025 Best Journal Article Award from the Global Planning Educators’ Interest Group (GPEIG). The award recognizes outstanding peer-reviewed journal articles that contribute significantly to global planning. GPEIG is part of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP), which aims to bring together planning students and educators to promote global perspectives in planning education and research.
The criteria for the award include making a significant scholarly impact, employing novel data collection or analysis methods, or addressing practitioners in unique ways. Eligible articles must have been published in a peer-reviewed journal within the past three years, with at least one author being an active participant in planning educational networks such as ACSP. The award was presented during the GPEIG Business Meeting at the ACSP conference in October 2025.
The recognized article, titled “A politically less contested and financially more calculable urban future: Density techniques and heightened land commodification in Taiwan,” was co-authored by Mi Shih and Ying-Hui Chiang from National Chengchi University in Taipei. It appeared in Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, Volume 56, Issue 6, September 2024.
The article explores how density techniques in Taiwan’s urban development contribute to depoliticizing decision-making processes while increasing land commodification. The authors focus on practices such as Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) and density bonusing, common tools used in Taiwan’s urban land development. They examine how these technocratic approaches use predetermined formulas that limit community negotiation and accelerate land commodification.
Using mixed research methods, including a case study of Central North in New Taipei City, the authors analyze how formulaic density rules allow planners to embed their assumptions about urban development into property projects. By adopting valuation methods similar to those used by real estate professionals, they estimate the price-lifting effects of 18 development projects. Their findings show that formulaic rules enable density to be factored into cost–benefit analyses as a profit enhancer before additional density is granted. This process encourages aggressive land transactions and increases land prices.
The authors argue that technical depoliticization through TDR and density bonusing has become a key factor in creating an urban environment where financial calculations dominate political considerations regarding land value. They conclude by discussing the need to shift density issues from technical regulation and finance toward broader political debates about land use.
