The Impact of Community Land Trusts on Gentrification

Abstract

Gentrification is a shift in an urban community toward wealthier residents or businesses and increasing property values, at the expense of displacement of the poorer residents of the community. This is one of the most widely used concepts in urban planning and development, and has been practically evident in many cities around the world for the past several decades. However, poorer residents who are unable to pay increased rents in a gentrified community may be driven out. A more serious problem than displacement is the removal of affordable housing from the community’s building stock.

In this sense, the Community Land Trust (CLT) can be a good way to address negative effects of gentrification. CLTs arose from the concept that land is not a private good but a public asset. The fundamental principle of CLTs is that a community owns and leases lands through a long-term ground lease to individual residents who own their homes located on the land. CLTs are used in the U.S. mainly to provide long-term owner-occupied housing for low income households, and are rapidly disseminated in the U.S. This research aims to assess the impacts of CLTs on gentrification to practically answer the question; “Do CLTs really counteract the negative effects on community caused by gentrification?”

A mixed method research, which uses both quantitative and qualitative methods, is a fundamental structure to get a more holistic view about the research question. The relationship between CLTs and gentrification is examined through a cross-sectional comparison and a logistic regression in the quantitative approach; how the findings of the quantitative approach are fit for the practical situation is reviewed by the qualitative approach. Findings show that CLTs have a negative relationship with gentrification and suggest that CLTs can address the problems caused by gentrification.

The results of this study offer policy guidelines to the city governments having a plan to introduce CLTs in their jurisdiction, and help community leaders and/or residents know how to improve and stabilize their neighborhoods.