From Progressive Property to Progressive Cities: Can Socially Sustainable Interpretations of Property Contribute toward Just and Inclusive City-Planning? Global Lessons

Abstract

This paper explores if and how the idea of progressive property can help to shape more inclusive, sustainable, and just cities around the globe. While quite nuanced, at its heart the progressive perspective on property considers property as a means of addressing important human needs. It is consistent with reciprocal and communitarian approaches to property rights. Nowhere are these insights more relevant or needed than in cities—dense urban areas where legacies of exclusion have deprived disadvantaged groups of housing and public services. In cities and neighboring suburbs, the right to exclude collides head-on with the need to share limited space with those of little means. By re-examining the work of progressive property scholars, we suggest concrete ways of reconceptualizing access to the city. This paper ties legal theory to housing and city-planning by proposing an international perspective to progressive property scholarship, with a focus on local government policies pertaining to housing. We do so by comparatively examining case studies from the United States (US), Spain, Brazil, and Israel—four countries that are actively experimenting with progressive definitions of property in a manner which affects urban planning and housing in cities.