Feb 5 2017
Arc of Justice traces the remarkable journey of New Communities, Inc. (NCI) in southwest Georgia, a story of racial justice, community organizing, and perseverance in the face of enormous obstacles. CHECK OUT THE FILM’S WEBSITE BACKGROUND: NCI was created in 1969 in Albany, Georgia by leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, including Congressman John […]
Aug 29 2015
We’ve just added the most complete bibliography of books, articles, films, and reports ever compiled about community land trusts. And editor-in-chief John Emmeus Davis will keep it updated at least twice a year as new materials are published. GO TO THE CLT BIBLIOGRAPHY
Jun 1 2015
JOHN EMMEUS DAVIS: Land is typically the least creative aspect of community development, conceptually and practically. A departure from this norm is the community land trust (CLT), an innovative model of community-led development that rearranges relations of property and power in the place of residence. The foundation for a CLT, as well as for other […]
May 1 2015
The Troy Gardens archive contains all development documents relating to the Troy Gardens project of the Madison Area Community Land Trust (MACLT). Based on the complexity of the project and the variety of uses on the site (mixed-income cohousing, a CSA farm, community gardens, and a restored prairie), MACLT encountered nearly every issue a CLT […]
Apr 27 2014
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.
Apr 7 2014
BY JOHN EMMEUS DAVIS: “History is bunk,” declared Henry Ford to a newspaper reporter in 1916. “The only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today.” We are a people who would rather look forward than backward. Our field is no exception. Making things better here and now is what matters the most, a case of do or die. Who has time to wonder how the story began?
Jan 29 2014
BY JOHN EMMEUS DAVIS: Doing homeownership with a ground lease is “just too hard,” goes the tiresome refrain. It is “so much easier” using a deed covenant to ensure the lasting affordability of resale-restricted, owner-occupied homes that private donations, public subsidies, or public powers have made possible. So many voices raised in agreement that the same objectives can be achieved just as effectively—and much more easily—through deed covenants. But is that actually true?
Aug 19 2013
BY GREG ROSENBERG: This morning I taught what was probably my millionth class on community land trusts—but this one was different. This was a course for the Democracy Convention, the second national gathering of the U.S. democracy movement in Madison, Wis. For a change, the audience was way more radical than I was. And as I worked my way through a presentation on the division of property ownership, housing subsidies, and methods to minimize foreclosure rates, it dawned on me how much the language I used had changed over the years.
Jul 23 2013
BY JOHN DAVIS: One of many effects of the Great Recession has been a shift in public policy and nonprofit programming from a focus on helping lower-income families “move to opportunity” to a focus on helping renters and homeowners to keep what they’ve already got. But there is nothing funny about families being stuck in housing that doesn’t meet their needs, either because it provides too little or demands too much.
Roots&Branches is now part of the Center for Community Land Trust Innovation: www.cltweb.org. We’re migrating much of the content from Roots&Branches to this new website — and as such, Roots&Branches will go into archival mode.
CONTACT: Please feel free to email Greg Rosenberg with any questions you have at greg@gregrosenberg.com.
Apr 3 2017
Announcing a Pair of March 2017 Publications by John Emmeus Davis
This extended meditation on the economic, political, and operational advantages of the CLT builds upon a concept paper about community-led development on community-owned land that was posted on Roots & Branches a couple of years ago.
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