Common Ground: The Community Land Trust Movement
How a Radical Land Idea Became a Global Housing Solution

About this book:

What if the housing crisis isn't a market failure but a design flaw—one we've had the blueprint to fix for over fifty years? *Common Ground* reveals the hidden history of the Community Land Trust: a revolutionary model born not in policy labs but in the crucible of the Civil Rights Movement, where Black sharecroppers in rural Georgia fused Gandhi's land-gift movement with Ebenezer Howard's garden cities to create a legal mechanism that permanently removes land from speculation while preserving homeownership for working families. From the fields of Albany to Bernie Sanders's Burlington, from Boston's Dudley Street reclaiming eminent domain to the Caño Martín Peña trusting informal settlers in Puerto Rico, this book traces how a radical idea became a global movement spanning six continents.

The CLT's elegance is deceptively simple: a community nonprofit holds land in trust forever; families own the homes atop it. When they sell, a resale formula lets them build modest equity while locking affordability into the dirt for the next generation. No more expiring subsidies. No more public investment vanishing into private windfalls. No more choosing between tenant protections and wealth building. Through meticulous research and vivid storytelling, *Common Ground* unpacks the legal architecture, the organizing strategies, the municipal partnerships, and the hard-won compromises that let communities from Brussels to Berlin, from urban farms to cultural hubs, wield this tool against displacement, climate risk, and the financialization of shelter.

This is more than housing policy—it's a masterclass in democratic ownership. Whether you're an organizer fighting gentrification, a policymaker tired of temporary fixes, or a citizen who believes shelter shouldn't be a speculative asset, *Common Ground* offers a proven, scalable alternative to the treadmill of unaffordability. The land question has always been a power question. This book shows what happens when communities answer it themselves.