The 2014 Edition of Origins and Evolution of the Community Land Trust in the U.S.

JOHN EMMEUS DAVIS:  Last year, I was contacted by a small publisher in Montreal, Les Éditions Écosociété, asking for my assistance in preparing a collection of essays about community land trusts for French-speaking audiences in Quebec, Belgium, and France.  The translation of these previously published essays, some written by me and some by others, was recently completed.  The book is now in production, with a scheduled distribution date of October 2014.  Its working title is Les fiducies foncières communautaires: Introduction à l’antispéculation immobilière (Community land trusts: An Introduction to the fight against property speculation).

“Origins and Evolution of the Community Land Trust in the United States” is the book’s opening chapter.  An earlier version had appeared in The Community Land Trust Reader, published by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in 2010.  Instead of allowing Les Éditions Écosociété simply to reprint this essay in translation, however, I took the opportunity to revise it: correcting errors, expanding content, and removing outdated information.  My colleague, Greg Rosenberg, then reformatted it to be accessible and readable on a variety of portable devices.

While I believe this latest telling of the CLT’s story to be an improvement over the last, the tale is still unfolding.  New facts come to light.  New influences become obvious.  New connections appear among the people and precedents that gave rise to the modern-day CLT.  And, of course, the movement itself remains in flux, as the model gets applied and structured in new ways. The 2014 edition of “Origins and Evolution” brings the story up to date, but it is hardly the final word.

“Origins and Evolution of the Community Land Trust in the U.S.”, by John Emmeus Davis