Speaker
Description
This article examines the reparative urban practice of three well-established community land trusts (CLTs) in the United States. Whereas commercial land developers tend to favor concentrated, market-driven projects with quick returns, CLTs are mission-driven non-profit organizations that strive for systemic change by strategically taking land off the market. CLTs’ manner of operating enables them to advance urban visions that commercial developers would not and could not undertake. Building on the concept “grounded urban practice,” (Nagati et al, 2020) this paper demonstrates how CLTs use space as an agent of urban transformation, rooted in community and with experimental organizational methods that defy the status quo. More specifically, the paper elaborates the key factors that have allowed exemplary, long-standing trusts to succeed in advancing spatial justice in cities and territories across the US. For these trusts, the key factors to success include the following: having a long-term, place-based agenda for justice; having a diverse range of programs to activate different actors, financial tools, and land interests; and having explicitly spatial strategies that negotiate the social and urban field. The paper presents these key traits, which the trusts have in common and which we argue are the foundation for their accomplishments. These findings—drawn from semi-structured interviews, GIS mapping of parcel data, and spatial analysis—are relevant to multiple actors: municipalities who committed to addressing historical harm; emerging community-based organizations aiming to intervene in their urban land markets; and designers and planners eager to contribute to land-based movements.
CLTs engage with the property market by decommodifying portions of it, making these suitable for affordable, community-driven projects. In effect, properties incorporated into a CLT are decommodified of their land value, such that only the value of the right to use the land and any existing buildings remains on the market. With the land value (what is colloquially called “the dirt”) removed from the equation, CLTs are able to offer economic integration through affordable housing but also—and much more significantly—in the cases described here, the advancement of spatial justice through neighborhood-scale urban transformation.
This paper draws from rich scholarship on CLTs from sociocultural and economic standpoints (DeFilippis et al, 2019) and starts to fill the spatial knowledge gap of such trusts as alternative urban planners-developers, especially ones which have a track record of success, identify as an urban actor, and position themselves in political terms. For the three trusts discussed in the paper—Rondo Community Land Trust (established 1993, Saint Paul, Minnesota), North Shore Community Land Trust (established 1997, Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi), and Dudley Neighbors Incorporated (established 1988, Boston, Massachusetts)—the concept of urban reparation is key, because each has emerged out of contextually-defined historic injustices related to racialization and colonization (Forester et al, 2022). For Rondo CLT, this translates to a revitalized commercial corridor enlivened by Black American culture; for North Shore CLT it means conservation of the indigenous ahupuaʻa valleys under the threat of urbanization; and for Dudley Neighbors CLT this manifests as a vibrant, mixed-use village centered on resident empowerment. In the hands of these trusts, decommodified land drives impressive spatial transformations and advances concrete manifestations of urban reparations. In a moment of escalating, interconnected environmental crises, these CLTs offer an inspiring model that demonstrates the importance of communities in shaping the property market to address issues of environmental and social sustainability.
References
DeFilippis, James, Williams, Olivia R., Pierce, Joseph, Martin, Deborah G., Kruger, Rich, Esfahani, Azadeh Hadizadeh (2019) “On the Transformative Potential of Community Land Trusts in the United States,” Antipode, 51 (3), pp. 796–817.
Nagati, Omar, Stryker, Beth (CLUSTER) (2019) Grounded Urban Practices. [Online] available at: https://groundedurbanpractices.net/gups-cairo-amsterdam-publication/.
Knapp, Courtney, Poe, Jocelyn, Forester, John, eds. (2022) ‘Repair and Healing in Planning,’ Planning Theory & Practice 23 (3), pp. 1–34.
| Keywords | Community land trust; urban design; reparations; property markets; decommodification |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | Yes |
