Dear friend,

Welcome to Frontier, the monthly newsletter from the Future of Land and Housing Program at New America. This month, we explored the links between land use, governance, and zoonosis, and looked at the myriad ways Tanzanian organizations are using participatory land mapping to help with everything from water management to conservation. We are also continuing to work with 14 cities and counties on eviction and foreclosure data collection to inform a public data tool, and are moving ahead with our research on understanding barriers to affordable homeownership in North Carolina. 

Here's what else we've been up to:

What We're Doing

How Local Housing Leaders are Using Data to Navigate the COVID-19 Eviction Crisis

As COVID-19 surges across the U.S. and local governments struggle to disburse emergency rental relief, our understanding of evictions is hindered by significant information gaps. Eviction data is extremely inconsistent across the country, and as such, we may never fully know who lost their home during the pandemic, where it was concentrated, and how eviction moratoriums and other measures are impacting communities.

Earlier this year, we hosted a virtual event that showcased how three localities—Houston, Orlando, and the state of Connecticut—used eviction data and analysis to help keep tenants housed amid the crisis.

FLH's Sabiha Zainulbhai reassembled these conversations as case studies, illustrating creative ways that cities and states have used eviction data.

Read these case studies here.

Climate Change and Property Rights in the Arctic

Climate change is irreversibly altering Arctic ecosystems and landscapes. Melting glaciers in Iceland are creating the unusual pattern of rising land, which is damaging infrastructure and complicating land governance. And in Alaska, some coastal villages are considering relocation due to rising ocean levels—presenting significant challenges to communities whose worldview and culture are tied to the land.

While these may seem like local challenges, similar climate-related scenarios will play out globally in coming decades. So what can we learn from the Arctic?

As part of a series on climate change and Arctic property rights, FLH’s Gabriella Gricius-Abbott explored these two complex challenges in recent blog posts:

• If We Can't Stop Iceland's Glaciers from Melting, Let's Replace Them With Forests
• Entire Alaskan Communities are Sinking into the Ocean—And Many Can't Move Inland

Access the complete blog series here.

What We're Reading

FLH staff share what has stood out to them lately on land, housing, and property rights in the U.S. and internationally.

Yuliya Panfil

Case Study: Property Rights and Stability in Afghanistan: In the wake of Afghanistan’s shockingly swift fall to the Taliban, I’ve been re-reading former International Security Program fellow John Dempsey's reflections on his time in Afghanistan. Dempsey, now a Senior Advisor at USAID, wrote that "while a grand peace deal may eventually end the war, stability in the country will remain elusive until the most intractable and overlooked driver of conflict in Afghanistan is addressed: the prevalence of land and housing disputes." As we now know, a peace deal was not to be had. But John's point stands, perhaps even more so now.  

Attacks, land grabs leave Bangladesh’s Indigenous groups on edge: In Bangladesh, Bengali settlers are grabbing indigenous lands in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), a phenomenon that dates back to 1980 when landless Bengali families began migrating to the CHT. We can expect this sort of conflict to grow in frequency, as the number of migrants across the world rises due to wars, environmental disasters, and climate change. How do we ensure the places that receive migrants are equipped to either allocate them lands, or work out other arrangements so the new arrivals can live in peace with pre-existing inhabitants?

Sabiha Zainulbhai

Why the U.S. can’t lose its Black middle-class neighborhoods: An interview with Alan Mallach about the urgent need to preserve Black middle-class neighborhoods—those that exist between the upscale and the devastated. In cities like Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, and St. Louis, these neighborhoods are in many respects the backbone of the city and can be preserved for a lot less money than it would take to bring them back if we do nothing.

Castle in the Cloud: The platformization of housing: The increasing consolidation of real estate in the hands of private asset management firms and digital real estate tracking firms is contributing to driving up home prices. But it is also slowly altering our sense of place. What is the future of land and housing when where we live is increasingly treated as an investment vehicle solely for profit and less like a shared place we invest in? 

Tim Robustelli

How Your Cup of Coffee Is Clearing the Jungle: Indonesian farmers, swept up in the international coffee market, are growing beans inside the borders of a national park home to tigers, monkeys, and elephants. One environmentalist wonders if the fields and the forest can be saved. But can land use policies truly account for nature and agriculture equitably? It’s certainly a question worth asking as the planet experiences both continued population growth and a string of ecological disasters.

How Condo Buildings End: As aging condo buildings wrack up millions in maintenance and the U.S. rental market continues to boom, owners face a blunt choice: pay up for fixes, or sell to property investors for “deconversion” into rental units. Many condo owners, especially retirees with a desire to stay put, aren’t thrilled with either choice. So could there be a third option, perhaps through innovative funding or ownership models?

Thoughts on our work or where we're headed? Reach out to us at FLH@NewAmerica.org or tag us at @FLHatNewAmerica.

Until next month, the FLH Team.

About New America

New America is dedicated to renewing the promise of America, bringing us closer to our nation’s highest ideals. We’re a different kind of think tank: one dedicated to public problem solving. Our team of visionary researchers, changemakers, technologists, and storytellers study and seize the opportunities presented by dramatic social and technological change. We search for powerful ideas, wherever they are, and collaborate with civic innovators around the world to develop evidence-based solutions.

The Future of Land and Housing Program at New America aims to help solve today’s property rights challenges, both at home and abroad. Through our research, writing, and convening, we strive to connect new constituencies and shed light on underreported issues in the property rights space.

You are receiving this email because you signed up to receive newsletters from New America. Click to update your subscription preferences or unsubscribe from all New America newsletters.