Why Community Land Trusts?

The six essays contained in this monograph were selected from On Common Ground: International Perspectives on the Community Land Trust, published in June 2020. They are gathered here because each explores, from a slightly different angle, various justifications for the community land trust.

CLTs are not all alike. Among the hundreds that exist in a dozen different countries, there are numerous variations in how these organizations are structured, how their lands are utilized, how development is done, and how the stewardship of housing is operationalized. What is called a “community land trust” can vary greatly from one place to another.

Despite this lack of uniformity, scholars and practitioners have advanced a similar set of moral, political, and practical arguments in favor of this strategy. Their multi-faceted case for the CLT says: When land is owned for the common good of a place-based community, present and future; when development is done by an organization that is a creature of that community, rooted in it, accountable to it, and guided by it; when stewardship is deliberate, diligent, and durable . . . justice is more likely to be achieved. And more likely to last.

Chapters

• Chapter 1: Yves Cabannes &Philip Ross, “The Once and Future Garden City.”
• Chapter 2: John Emmeus Davis, “Common Ground: Community-Owned Land as a Platform for Equitable and Sustainable Development.”
• Chapter 3: Steve King, “Making a Case for CLTs in All Markets, Even Cold Ones.”
• Chapter 4: Verena Lenna, “Preserving Urban Generativity: The Role of Porous Spaces in CLT Projects.”
• Chapter 5: María E. Hernández-Torrales, “A Reflection on the Bioethics of Community Land Trusts.”
• Chapter 6: John Emmeus Davis, “Better Together: The Challenging, Transformative Complexity of Community, Land, and Trust.