RENDERING URBAN JUSTICE: A CASE STUDY OF COMMUNITY LAND TRUST HOUSING AFFORDABILITY PROBLEM-SOLVING IN THE LOWER EAST SIDE OF NEW YORK CITY

Back to Page Authors: Conrad Walker

---

Keywords: housing affordability, community land trusts, urban justice outcomes, community activism and development

---

Abstract: This study draws on ethnographic field methods and social network analysis to better understand how urban community land trusts (CLT) solve housing affordability problems in New York City. I pursue this line of inquiry since prevailing scholarship in public and urban policy contends that urban regimes are difficult to penetrate and often do not adopt policy models outside of their dominant conventions. However, this study shows otherwise. First, I show how Cooper Square Community Land Trust crafts and hones a set of professional practices that enable them to advance their community’s interests while acting as a community-centered policy actor. Secondly, I show how they embed their organizational routines into NYC’s housing policy arena (i.e. institutional embeddedness) through a carefully designed policy network in order to achieve their model of pro-equity policymaking. Based on these findings, I argue that urban CLTs can achieve regime disruption in pro-growth urban settings with well conceptualized organizational routines and strong tie policy networks. I also conclude with recommendations on ways to broaden the scholarly literature on regime disruption and policy innovation in public and urban policy scholarship.

---