Articles
Articles and background reading
INTRODUCTORY PAPER
Land: Challenge and Opportunity 1988 by Susan Witt and Robert Swann An introduction to re-thinking our relationship to the land, using the Community Land Trust as a tool. Discusses various uses of a Land Trust and how different community organizations can cooperate to effectively enable land and farmland preservation, initiate community land use planning and create affordable housing.
BACKGROUND PAPERS BY ROBERT SWANN
Land Trusts as Part of a Threefold Economic Strategy for Regional Integration by Robert Swann Swann's threefold strategy includes land trusts, community development corporations and community money. Includes a discussion of key reasons why land trusts are advantageous in a strategy of regional decentralization.
Introduction to the 1972 edition of The Community Land Trust Handbook by Robert Swann Discusses the evolution and historical precedents of land trusts.
Alternatives to Ownership: Land Trusts as Land Reform by Robert Swann Short discussion of CLTs as a way to create long-lasting land reform.
Land, Land Trusts and Employment by Robert Swann Swann disputes Keynes' approach to economic management, and offers the land trust as a more effective vehicle for increasing employment in a region.
COMMUNITY LAND TRUSTS AND FARMLAND
Group Effort Saves Nation's First CSA Farm by Susan Witt, 1999 The Nature Conservancy, the Community Land Trust in the Southern Berkshires, and two farmers form a partnership to save Indian Line Farm.
A New Lease on Farmland by Susan Witt and Jay Rossier, 1990 paper on how conservation land trusts and community land trusts can cooperate to save working farmland for working farmers.
Regional Responsibility for Farmland by Susan Witt, 1985 Clarifies the roles of the Land Trust in preserving farm land, and points to the potential for Community Land Trusts and Conservation Land Trusts to work together.
OTHER PAPERS
Connecting for Change by Susan Witt
2005 talk for Bioneers by the Bay, Marion, Mass
New Agrarians: Local Innovators by Susan Witt 2003 Talk given in celebration of 25th anniversary of publication of Wendell Berry's Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture
Think About Land by E.F. Schumacher
Capitalism, the Commons, and Divine Right by Peter Barnes 2003 A look at the potential for expanding the role and the rights of the commons. Barnes suggests that commons should be held in trusts for the benefit of current and future generations, as a way of countering the power of the market and its search for short-term private profits.
From Common Wealth to Common Property by Peter Barnes 2006
Voices from White Earth: Gaa-waabaabiganikaag by Winona LaDuke LaDuke, a member of the Mississippi Band of the Anishinaabe from the White Earth Reservation, is devoted to restoring the integrity of the White Earth Reservation by repurchasing land and holding it in a community land trust arrangement so that it may be productively used without fear of loss.
The CLT Model: A Tool for Permanently Affordable Housing and Wealth Generation by Gus Newport
The Wisdom That Builds Community by Greg Watson Greg Watson tells the story of the Dudley Street Community Land Trust, which now supports hundreds of units of renovated owner-occupied homes, a productive greenhouse, locally-owned businesses, and reinvigorated neighborhood pride.
An Interview with Gus Newport by Susan Witt