Tokenizing the city: NFTs as tools for equitable urban governance and community-led planning

Abstract

Applying NFTs to urban planning offers revolutionary potential but raises serious equity concerns. Although NFTs are linked to digital art speculation, their underlying technology, decentralized ownership, smart contracts, and tamper-proof records could transform participatory planning, land-use management, and community asset stewardship. This article discusses how NFTs could decentralize planning power by enabling tokenized community land trusts, zoning-compliance automation, and neighborhood DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations). However, they also pose dangers, such as digital exclusion, environmental degradation from energy-hungry blockchains, and capture by technocratic elites. Mitigation is needed through hybrid digital-physical participation systems, public sector-led blockchain infrastructure, and equity-sensitive token design if these tools are to benefit the public interest. The article proposes a staged implementation approach, beginning with controlled pilots (e.g., NFT-tracked community benefit agreements) before scaling up to more advanced applications such as dynamic zoning regimes. Lastly, ethical use of NFTs in planning demands visionary public-sector leadership to avert the entrenchment of existing inequalities in the name of innovation. Planners must critically engage with this emerging technology not as eager consumers but as stewards shaping its trajectory toward more equitable, open, and democratic urban futures. The question is not whether NFTs will influence cities, but who will determine that influence and to what ends.