Setting Firm Roots Toward a New Generation of Community Land Trusts in Chicago, IL

Conceptualized in the 1960s to restructure private land ownership, community land trusts (CLTs) grew into tools for affordable housing through use of ground leases and resale specifications. In urban contexts, CLTs permit low-income individuals to access homeownership and encourage growth in neighborhoods subject to displacement. Scholarship indicates that the radical politics and grassroots community control promoted by the first generation of CLTs in the 1960s through the 1980s subsided among second-generation CLTs in the 1990s and 2000s, who were primarily concerned with survival amid the welfare state’s decline. Some fear that this transition diminished the CLT’s tendency to engage community members and reform the status quo. As CLTs gain popularity and adapt to changing urban contexts, there is a need to evaluate recently established and emerging CLTs in comparison to those of former generations. Analyzing CLT orientation, behavior, and adaptation in contemporary Chicago, I demonstrate that Chicago’s active and forthcoming CLTs leverage financial and technical assistance to advance community interests, particularly the “right to stay” among Chicago’s Black and Latino populations, without sacrificing their values of social justice or community control. Chicago’s CLTs exist in a unique temporal context compared to first and second-generation CLTs, suggesting the emergence of a third generation characterized by a supportive environment and strong institutional partnerships.