Public land revisited: municipalization and privatization in Newark and New York City

ABSTRACT

Public land plays a central role in contemporary urban planning struggles. Using a comparative case study approach focused on the north-eastern US cities of Newark and New York City, we uncover patterns of land acquisition and dispossession that fit five broad and often overlapping periods in planning history: City Beautiful, metropolitan reorganization, deindustrialization, and devaluation, followed by hyper-commodification in New York City and redevelopment amidst disinvestment in Newark. Through this periodization, we find that accumulation and alienation of urban public land has largely taken place through two modes of municipalization (targeted and reactive) and two modes of privatization (community-led and capital-led). Uncovering these complex and contradictory processes strengthens the case for a more intentional approach to public land than either city’s leadership is currently pursuing, but which social movements have persistently demanded – one which prioritizes democratic decision-making in long-term land management, as well as public access, use and purpose.

KEYWORDS:

• Public land
• municipalization
• privatization
• vacancy
• displacement

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank: Laura Wolf Powers for allowing us to expand on a shorter article we previously published in Metropolitics; John Krinsky and Joshua Akers for reviewing that manuscript; Nina Gribat and Barbara Pizzo for inviting us to contribute to this special issue; the anonymous IPS reviewers for their helpful recommendations; Monxo Lopez for his insights on political debates around the nature of land ownership; and the organizers of the Hindsight 2017 conference for first sparking this conversation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 While this premise may seem commonplace to critical planners, political philosophers have been debating the natural versus civil roots of private land ownership since Plato and Aristotle, if not beyond. The US constitution’s enshrinement of private property in law is rooted in Lockean arguments about the natural status of private property.

2 This language builds off David Harvey’s (2003) concept of ‘accumulation by dispossession,’ a contemporary form of primitive accumulation.

3 The long-term impact of government disinvestment and recent engagements with the federal Rental Assistance Demonstration program, however, raise serious questions about the long-term fate character of the city’s public housing (Hanlon 2017).

4 Properties in very deep tax arrears are deemed high risk (because the trust does not expect the property owner to pay them) and lower the overall value of the bond.