(Re)envisioning Land and Power: A Fight for Community Ownership + Control in Massachusetts

This thesis describes a client-based project I undertook in service to the Healthy Neighborhood Study Research Consortium (HNSRC) to help them develop a toolkit for community ownership + control. The toolkit explores what it takes to carry out community-led transformation for collective spaces. The toolkit came together through a participatory action research (PAR) process that built on years of neighborhood-level work carried out by folks committed to transforming their communities. My role in helping develop the toolkit was three-fold. First, I undertook archival and case study research to understand the historic and present day conditions that produced one parcel of vacant land in Boston as a way of adding contextual information to the toolkit. Second, I facilitated Learning and Innovation for Neighborhood Change (LINC) Lab working sessions with resident researchers, members of the HNSRC and who served as my committee of advising resident researchers, to surface insights into community land issues. Third, I synthesized my academic archival and case study research together with HNS insights to draft the toolkit itself. The result is a joint-authored, action-oriented HNS toolkit that aims to help community members better understand and navigate the process of taking community control over land.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Urban Studies and Planning

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2022

Author dc:creator

• García López, César

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Arcaya, Mariana
• Steil, Justin

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted
• Copyright retained by author(s)

Licence dc:rights.uri

• https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/145026

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/145026