Tracing “ownership” of the world’s finite and fragile land reveals important stories and insights that can be used in multiple ways.
Local and national governments’ planning and zoning actions hold sway too, of course – within the ecosystem that shapes what gets built, where, and how. But ownership of land and properties itself has major implications: from access to housing, to climate and nature, to workers’ rights on sites and through supply chains, to the future of cities and territories.
The image above sketches out major groupings of owners. Oftentimes they overlap, e.g. with two or three of these groups involved in one plot. And structures vary from direct to indirect ownership. The image can be used as a jumping-off-point for further inquiry then action relating to any place or context.
As I emphasize in my Open Global Rights piece on this, two dimensions are important:
- strengthening transparency and accountability around ownership patterns and changes, and taking action on that basis, and:
- challenging the status quo – advancing creative new (and ancient) approaches to how humans value and imagine our relationship to land, and recognizing that any specific parcel is deeply connected to what surrounds it.
Below are examples of land-ownership mapping and advocacy in practice in different contexts. Get in touch with suggestions and additions, both to the image and examples – this post will be updated over time!
And a final (obvious but important!) point: behind every one of these institutions and organizations, are human beings with agency, ideas, networks – opening up possibilities for change.
Illustrative examples of mapping initiatives and analysis
Land Mark: Explore indigenous and community land rights (global map)
New York City: “Who owns all of New York? An epic first-ever ranking of the largest property owners in the city”, The Real Deal
Cairo: “Who owns Cairo?”, 10Tooba
Arab States: “Land data tools & collaboration for resilience in the Arab Region”, Land Portal
Belgrade, Berlin, Barcelona: “Critical Mapping for Municipalist Mobilization”, consortium supported by Robert Bosch Stiftung
Nairobi: GeoDevOps and KenyaWebGIS
Athens, Copenhagen, Lisbon and Prague: a series of urban land ownership maps and analysis by Dark Matter Labs and IHRB as part of the project “Building for Today and the Future“