‘Don't wait to buy, buy and wait.’ – behavioural and institutional factors affecting delays in land development. The GZM Metropolis in Poland

Empty or underutilised land has a negative impact on cities' structure. The literature on timing of land development has already examined market and general institutional factors affecting deferrals in building up land, yet the behavioural reasons have not been fully uncovered. In the institutional framework of post-transition country, with the peculiar remnants of formal and informal institutions from the previous system, this topic gains additional interest. Building on the quantitative results of our previous research, which showed that investors typically delay land development by an average of 3.4 years, we use a mixed methods approach. This research employs a grounded theory methodology to explore the values, attitudes and behaviours of investors and city officials that influence their decisions regarding the timing of land development. The analysis shows that the institutional background of polycentric, post-industrial metropolis - The Upper Silesia MA in Poland influences the behaviour of market participants, and remnants of institutions from the previous system add uncertainty to the land development process. Fierce competition between cities affects pro-investor attitude of city officials. Poorly written procedures and bureaucracy effects in discretionary decisions and less predictability. As a consequence, there is a tacit acceptance of delays in land development, with investors exploiting the legal loopholes. This creates a feedback loop with an established system (lock-in). As many of the reasons for land development postponements stem from ‘fuzzy’ institutions, the results of this research should be applicable in the other post-transition countries.