The Center for Urban Planning and Policy (CUPP) undertakes research and analysis to help improve processes and regulatory frameworks for urban land development. It further translates this research into relevant and applicable policy prescriptions towards addressing challenges such as increasing land supply, improving affordability, securing land for public purposes, and establishing clear land rights.

Land and real estate markets play an important role in shaping cities. Urban land is a critical resource to establish efficient and functional markets. Absences of well-functioning markets pose a series of challenges like conflicts, speculation, and affordability gaps. The functioning of these markets is dependent upon land-related policies that manage externalities, create public goods, extract land value gains and provide equitable access to land for the poor. Thus, it is important to systematically study these policies, as well as understand their impact on land and real estate markets. At CUPP, our aim is to advance practice-oriented research in urban land policy that supports economic development and sustainable and equitable urbanisation.

CUPP engages with governments through advisory work and capacity building. It has developed considerable training material in the domains of urban land planning and regulations, housing, and governance, and has also carried out significant inter-state comparative studies on land pooling and readjustment mechanisms, revenue codes and built-form regulations.