Doctoral Dissertation Research: Linking Changing Uses of Property with Urban Transformations

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During periods of social and economic stress, how do organizations collaborate to rework rules and norms of property law so that unused land can be activated as a common resource? And why, even when conditions might seem ripe, do some such collaborations not bear fruit?This project contributes to ongoing interdisciplinary research on urban resilience, and sheds new light on how people bring about and govern common resources in urban settings. It does so by investigating how people and organizations in one of America?s largest cities have periodically organized, and dissolved, regimes for governing land as a common resource. Long term agreements concerning use deploy urban resources flexibly to allow communities to address changing priorities. Governance of common resources has long been a focus of concern across the social sciences; little scholarship on urban resilience and property regimes is theoretically informed by historical evidence. The project combines archival and ethnographic methods to explore connections between urban farming and property law in Chicago, between the 1890s and today. The ethnographic component includes collaborative research with policy organizations. The final part develops two contemporary case studies as points of comparison. By learning from past episodes of urban resilience and ongoing land-use experimentation, the project aims to inform future urban policy and planning. It will ultimately propose, through a policy report possible institutional designs for governing urban land as a common productive resource. The report will be useful for cities as they consider land redevelopment to address changing needs. In addition, the project will train students in the social sciences.