Does land property structure affect local development patterns? Evidence from a Greek tourist area

Abstract

This paper attempts to clarify the institutional context and local framework of landed property relations in the local development patterns of a rural space converted into an urban tourist resort on the island of Rhodes, Greece, through the diachronic analysis of cadastral data on land property ownership and non-market land property transfers and acquisitions. Direct and indirect state policies, land property structures inherited from the past, formal and informal institutions enabled agents to establish enterprises of varying types and size. Socially dispersed landownership is a structural resource that, through agency, influences local development patterns and land property is repeatedly implicated in the local production and reproduction system.