4.2.2 Modern land commons

In Boston, Massachusetts (USA) there’s a small, vibrant neighbourhood called Roxbury where residents have fought for decades to reclaim their land and build something new. In the 1980s, the community came together to form the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (DSNI), a group dedicated to stopping land speculators from turning their homes into high-priced developments. They wanted to preserve the character of their neighbourhood, ensuring it remained affordable and accessible to everyone. Today, thanks to a community land trust (CLT), they control over 30 acres of land, including housing, parks, and gardens, all managed for the benefit of local residents.

The DSNI story illustrates what modern land commons can look like in urban environments. But what does it mean for land to be managed as a commons? And why is this idea so important today?

Property rights are legal rules that define ownership and usage. For example, owning a phone means you can use, sell, or lend it. Laws protect your rights and exclude others from using your property without permission. Land ownership works similarly, giving the owner control over its use, sale, or inheritance.

Land becomes private property through legal systems. Governments issue titles that prove ownership and grant exclusive rights to the land, enforced by courts. However, these systems by definition exclude others. For example, many indigenous communities have historically lived on shared land without formal titles. When settlers arrived, many indigenous groups were forcibly removed or displaced by laws favoring private ownership.

Property rights can protect land from being taken unfairly, a practice called expropriation. However, property rights also create and worsen inequalities. People may lose access to vital resources or face exclusion from communities. These injustices persist today, prompting movements to restore land to displaced groups or bring it back into shared use.

A land commons is a way to manage land collectively. Communities work together to decide how to share, use, and care for their land.

Modern land commons remove land from markets permanently (decommodify it) and manage it for community benefit. Commoning of land often involves agricultural practices like agroecology, permaculture or rewilding, community forests, as well as co-operative and affordable housing built on the land.

Community land trust (CLT)

A community land trust (CLT) is a nonprofit organisation that owns land for public benefit. Land is removed from the for-profit market and held “in trust” for the community. The nonprofit organisation (the trustee) owns the land. Residents (the beneficiaries) lease the land through long-term agreements, ensuring affordable housing, local food production, and community spaces for future generations.

One example is Mexico’s ejido system, created after the Mexican Revolution. The state held the formal title to the land, but gave indigenous communities and poor farmers long-term collective rights to land. Members manage the land collectively, deciding on its use, such as leasing for farming or setting aside wildlife areas. This prevents speculative development and preserves community benefits. Ejidos are around half of Mexico’s agricultural land (Figure 2).

However, CLTs face challenges. Rising land prices make it hard to acquire new land, and legal changes can weaken collective ownership. Wealthy developers may use their financial power to influence politicians to change laws to favour private ownership and development. Such influence is called political capture.

International organisations and free trade agreements made by politicians sympathetic to business interests may result in land privatisation and displacement of commoners. For instance, Mexico’s 1992 reforms, tied to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), reduced protections for communal land, forcing many to leave their homes. Displaced individuals often worked in low-wage factories or migrated to the United States, facing harsh conditions.

CSAs often use sustainable practices like crop rotation, planting diverse crops, and composting, which improve soil health and protect biodiversity. Members gain more control over food production while supporting small farms and preventing industrial farms or developers from acquiring land. CSAs develop strong connections between people in and outside of cities, especially when they offer opportunities to directly participate in growing food or other farm work.

CSAs also face challenges. They need strong community support, which can be hard to maintain when people move or the economy weakens. CSA subscriptions can be more expensive than shopping at a grocery store, because CSAs are smaller than industrial farms and often use more regenerative practices. This can make operations more expensive. The higher prices mean that CSAs struggle to reach low-income communities. Some CSAs address this with sliding scale fees based on income, or partnering with food assistance programmes. 

The short video below shows a Swedish CSA called Three Oaks. You can change the subtitles to English if needed. There is a longer video about the farm in the “Further Exploration” section.

Concept: Regeneration

Skills: Research skills

Time: varies

Type: Individual, pairs, or group

Option 1: Mini-case studies

Time: 40+ minutes

Choose one of the following cases of modern land commoning:

Muungano Wa Wanavijiji CLT (Kenya)

Abalimi Bezekhaya (Cape Town, South Africa)

Terre de Liens (France)

Champlain Housing Trust (Vermont, USA)

• Do some online research to find out about the different parts of the commons you chose to examine (the resource, the community, the rules)

• Write up a mini-case study of the land commons you chose, either individually, or developed together with another student and combined with other case studies in a document or set of slides. 

• Aside from some basic facts you might want to consider including information on the factors below, which can help readers understand more clearly what makes your case an example of commoning (click the arrow to reveal)

Option 2: Investigating land trusts and/or community supported agriculture in your community

Time: 40+ minutes

• Find out whether there are any examples of community land trusts in your region. This might not be very easy to do, so you could work with your teacher to reach out to people in the community and the local government to find out.

• Community supported agriculture (CSA) is increasingly common around the world. 

  • Do a search on the internet to find out if there are examples of CSA in your region.

  • Go to the farm to find out more about the CSA or reach out to the management of the CSA to ask them to give a talk, or join your class online to talk more about their work.

  • If there is a CSA in your area, investigate whether it needs further depots to drop off produce. You may be able to arrange one at your school or some other site.

Ideas for longer activities and projects are listed in Subtopic 4.5 Taking action

• Solidarity Farming Network in Germany - a website with lots of information about CSAs in Germany. If you can’t read German and have a translator extension, you can read the information in a language you choose. Difficulty level: easy

• Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (DSNI) - the website of the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative described at the start of this section. Difficulty level: easy

• Community Land Trust Network - a website with case studies of community land trusts in the UK

• The Commoners Catalog for Changemaking: Tools for the Transitions Ahead - an online publication filled with interesting examples and stories of diverse forms of commoning, including land commoning. Difficulty level: medium.

• Mexico’s ejidos are finding greater sustainability by involving youth and women - an article in Mongabay about how Mexican ejidos are working to involve more youth and women to ensure the long-term viability of ejidos community land trusts, and providing more inclusive opportunities. You can also listen to an audio version of this report below. Difficulty level: easy

Bollier, D.  (2025). “8. Local, Vernacular, and Alive.” Think Like a Commoner, 2nd edition. Gabriola Island: New Society Publishers. https://www.thinklikeacommoner.com/

Bollier. D. (2021). The Commoners Catalog For Changemaking: Tools for the Transitions Ahead.  https://commonerscatalog.org/

Biodynamic Association (n.d.). “Community Supported Agriculture”. https://www.biodynamics.com/content/community-supported-agriculture

Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Ejido. In Britannica. Retrieved November 27, 2024, from https://www.britannica.com/topic/ejido

Kilhart, K. (2016, July). Free trade dismantling lives, cultures in Mexico. Grassroots International. Retrieved November 27, 2024, from https://grassrootsonline.org/learning_hub/free-trade-dismantling-lives-cultures-in-mexico/

Link to Quizlet interactive flashcards and terminology games for Section 4.2.2 Modern land commons

self-sufficient: a situation where an individual or a group can meet all their own needs themselves

genetically modified: an organism with genetic material that has been artificially altered to produce a desired characteristic

vermicomposting: the use of earthworms to convert organic waste into fertilizer

organic waste: any material that easily breaks down in nature and comes from either a plant or an animal

pesticide: a chemical that kills pests

buffer stock: a large supply of something that is stored when extra is available and used when there is not enough

Green Revolution: a large increase in crop production in low income countries achieved by the use of artificial fertilisers, pesticides, and high-yield crop varieties

monoculture: when a single crop is grown a given area

fertiliser: a chemical or natural substance added to soil or land to increase its fertility

speculator: a person who buys stocks, property, or other assets in the hope of making a profit

community land trust (CLT): a nonprofit corporation that holds land on behalf of a place-based community, while serving as the long-term steward for affordable housing, community gardens, civic buildings, commercial spaces and other community assets on behalf of a community

property right: the legal right to own a resource and determine how it is used

title: the formal document that states what a person's rights are related to property

indigenous community: the original settlers of an area (pre-invasion/colonialism) who have retained their culture apart from colonisers

expropriation: when a state or another authority takes property from its owner for public use or benefit

land commons: land that is shared by a group of people for their mutual benefit

decommodify: removing an activity from a market exchange

agroecology: a type of sustainable farming that works with nature

permaculture: an approach to land management and agriculture that mimics natural ecosystems

rewilding: protecting an environment and returning it to its natural state, passively by leaving it alone or actively by reintroducing native organisms that might have disappeared

nonprofit organisation: an organisation operated for a collective, public or social benefit where surpluses must be used to increase impact

trustee: a person who has responsibility for managing money or assets like land that have been set aside in a trust for the benefit of someone else

beneficiary: a person or thing that receives help or an advantage from something, such as a trust

lease: a financial arrangement in which a person or business pays to use land or some other asset for a particular period of time

political capture: when the government prioritises the interests of economically powerful groups over the general interests of the public

free trade agreement: an agreement between two or more countries to reduce barriers to imports and exports among them

privatise: to transfer (a business, property or service) from public to private ownership and control

North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA): an agreement that created a free trade area between the United States, Canada and Mexico

community supported agriculture (CSA): where people from a neighbourhood or town pool their money to support a local farm; they pay the farmer upfront at the beginning of the season, and in return, they receive a share of the farm’s produce each week

cooperative: an organisation owned and controlled by people to meet their common economic, social, and/or cultural needs

income: money received from work or investments

sustainability: meeting people’s needs within the means of the planet

crop rotation: growing of different crops in succession on a piece of land to avoid exhausting the soil and to control weeds, pests, and diseases

compost: to collect and store plant material so it can decay and be added to soil to improve its quality

biodiversity: the variety of living organisms on Earth

sliding scale fee: fees for services that are adjusted depending on an individual's income

income: money received from work or investments

food assistance programme: a government programme that provides financial help to purchase food for people who have a low or no income