While governments worldwide develop policies to promote urban densification, critics point to possible negative effects of densification on social sustainability. The occurrence and distribution of these negative social effects are strongly influenced by land policies. This makes it crucial to monitor the role of land policies and understand what processes shape urban development in the context of densification. To do so, detailed, large-scale international comparisons of densification patterns, including building and social changes, are needed. We address this issue by introducing a method to measure and compare urban development in two countries with contrasting planning systems: the Netherlands, where public actors play a strong and active role, and Switzerland, where strong private property titles and a highly democratic planning system are prevailing. Our GIS-based method analyses densification processes within their surrounding morphological and socio-demographic context. A k-proto cluster analysis on ...