The Impact of Local Institutions and Organizations on Community Land Trusts

• In Event: Civic Learning on Campus: Bringing Political Science In Mini-Conference III: Local Political Institutions and Citizen Engagement across Cases

Abstract

Community land trusts (CLTs) emerged in the United States during the Civil Rights Era as mechanisms to enable communal land holding and community building among residents who were previously excluded from both land ownership and local structures of political power. In the decades since, CLTs have become more common as remedies to the housing affordability crisis in U.S. cities as well as instruments to bring communities together to improve blighted neighborhoods. In this paper I ask how local institutional and organizational environments contribute to the creation, democratic structure, and ideological goals of CLTs. In addition, as CLTs become more ubiquitous I ask how the original intention to challenge local power structures and promote empowerment of residents has evolved, particularly in the search for urgent solutions to the crisis of affordability of shelter within our cities. As CLTs are now spreading to more diverse parts of the world than ever before, including communities in Brazil, the answers to whether and how the local institutional and organizational environments shape the role of CLTs to incorporate the voices of low-income citizens and transform urban governance have great implications. This paper assesses the context of cases in the U.S. and Brazil, drawing lessons across the Global North and South.

Author

• Maureen M. Donaghy, Rutgers University, Camden