Bøker av John Emmeus Davis

This book provides new and updated information about current policy collaborations among community land trusts, cities, counties, and states working to address the housing affordability crisis.

The community land trust (CLT) movement has grown from a single CLT in 1970 to nearly six hundred today, scattered across a dozen countries. While many people can be credited with the global spread of CLTs, eight individuals have been especially influential in pioneering, refining, and promoting this dynamic strategy of community-led development on community-owned land. Shirley Sherrod, Mtamanika Youngblood, Kirby White, Susan Witt, Gus Newport, Stephen Hill, María E. Hernández Torrales, and Yves Cabannes are "elders" of a movement they helped to create.Interviews conducted with them over the past decade were edited for the present volume in collaboration with the elders themselves. Their stories combine personal history and critical reflection, retracing the roads that led to their involvement with CLTs and charting the paths they believe CLTs should pursue to ensure the movement's continued growth. Starting from different backgrounds and careers, these eight individuals came to a similar realization. Disadvantaged classes, races, and places could be made less precarious and more prosperous by changing the way that land is owned. Community ownership, in particular, would make equitable development more likely. They became advocates for the CLT, therefore, mainly because they found it to be a practical tool for converting the land beneath homes, businesses, facilities, and farms from a speculative commodity bought and sold for private gain into a community asset used to promote the common good. Over the years, their advocacy has extended to all aspects of the community land trust, including resident engagement and permanent affordability, but they have championed the "L" in CLT above all. Land reform is what CLTs are "really about" in the eyes of these elders--reweaving the tapestry of tenure to enable place-based communities to bend the arc of their own development toward justice.

The community land trust (CLT) is a transformative strategy of community-led development on community-owned land that is taking root across the Global North and is now spreading to the Global South. CLTs produce and preserve affordably priced homes, retail spaces, urban (and rural) aglands, and a variety of neighborhood facilities – all developed under the auspices of people who live nearby; all managed to remain permanently affordable for people of modest means. Because of the way these assets are owned and because of the way these organizations are governed, CLTs offer new answers to fundamental questions of “who decides?” and “who benefits?” that should be asked whenever governments, charities, or NGOs invest scarce resources in improving the places where people live. 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 assets are stewarded for future generations. What is called a "community land trust" can vary greatly from one locality to another. Despite this lack of uniformity, advocates and practitioners have advanced a consistent set of arguments in favor of this strategy. Their multi-faceted case for the CLT says, in essence: 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 . . . development is more likely to be both equitable and sustainable, especially in places populated by classes and races who have long been disadvantaged and disempowered.The six essays contained in this monograph are drawn from a lengthier volume entitled On Common Ground: International Perspectives on the Community Land Trust. Most of that volume’s twenty-six chapters were focused on describing conditions, organizations, and polices that precipitated the appearance of CLTs in a range of urban and rural settings. But a number of chapters also looked closely at the philosophy behind this unconventional approach to real property, exploring various ethical, political, and practical justifications for the CLT. These essays were selected for the present monograph. Together, they provide a coherent and compelling rationale for why community land trusts are worthy of consideration, implementation, and support.   

Multiprofessional working unpacked for students and professionals.

Demystifies the complexities of organizations working together for the benefit of children.