Community land trusts: embracing the relationality of property

This chapter introduces community land trusts as a model of property that embraces the inherent relationality of this as a base for reducing the ability to speculate on value. As permanently affordable, community-led models of property and development, community land trusts represent contemporary manifestations of commons and can address the provision of stable and affordable housing as well as a broad range of objectives, as identified by the relevant community. The breadth and flexibility of community land trust activities shows that the context-specific application of their ongoing concern with community control and perpetual stewardship is a powerful enactment of property as a socially embedded, and hence political, phenomenon that can underpin diverse, flourishing communities and economies.