Land Lines April 2014
City Farms on CLTs
Community land trusts (CLTs) are providing an effective framework for urban agriculture—affording a locally controlled approach to land use, fostering community activism and engagement, and responding to evolving market conditions and neighborhood needs.
The Window Tax
The 17th-century British window tax, levied upon the number of windows in a residence, inspired extreme creative measures to avoid the tax. The authors describe the effects and calculate the costs of excess burden induced by this early antecedent of the modern property tax.
Land Values in Chicago, 1913–2010
The authors’ sampling of data from Olcott’s Land Values Blue Book of Chicago provides a clear picture of the spatial evolution of Chicago from 1913 to 2010, demonstrating the strong role that history continues to play in the current structure of the city.
This issue explores the support that Community Land Trusts can provide urban farmers as they grapple with land use, zoning, and property tax regulations; the financially burdensome British “window tax” of the 1600s; and the challenges of public land acquisitions in Latin America from the perspective of a socio-legal expert.