The researcher argues that the failure to account seriously for the ways that land use decisions interact with social capital, particularly in the most socially vulnerable communities, underlies many contemporary disputes involving the persistent fragmentation and social inequities of urban metropolitan space.

The research concludes by suggesting that only through a rethinking of the city commons can we begin to take social capital seriously in land use policy and law. Instead of conceptualizing the city as an aggregation of private property rights, we should instead seek to identify and protect common resources and interests in the city commons through limited access rights and collaborative governance strategies that preserve and draw upon existing social networks to manage common city resources.

The notion that certain uses of public and private property can have negative effects beyond legally defined property boundaries is firmly embedded in land use law. We are now comfortable regulating land use to prevent and control for impacts to our natural resources, environmental quality, and nuisances to third parties.

This idea is partly rooted in economic theory - i.e., the existence of negative externalities - but also in the theory of ecology - i.e., the notion that property is inextricably part of a network of social and economic relationships and that its impacts traverse legally defined property boundaries. But not all impacts, or costs, of land use are properly accounted for in land use regulation.

Scholars from a variety of disciplines recognize the importance of social capital to, and the deleterious impacts from its loss on, urban communities. Yet legal scholars have not taken seriously social capital when normatively evaluating urban land use regulation and policy.

The question that the research asks is how, if at all, we account for a
community’s social capital in land use law and policy. This inquiry is
based on the assumption that decisions about physical urban form and design often, but not always, exist in an in a highly interactive (and integrated) relationship with the social structure and organization of urban communities.

Only through a rethinking of the city commons can we begin to take social capital seriously in land use policy and law. Instead of conceptualizing the city as an aggregation of private property rights, policy makers should seek to identify and protect common resources and interests in the city commons. This can be done through limited access rights and collaborative governance strategies that preserve and draw upon existing social networks to manage common city resources.

Fordham University School of Law
Sheila R. Foster, tel. + 1 2126367771

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01/12/2006

Sheila R. Foster

research

Urban Policy > Urban environment

Land use