Geography 4742 Notes

Historic Roots of Land Use Institutions

Platt Chap. 3

How did the government come to have authority over land use?

English roots of common law; (there were also Spanish influences, especially the land grant system in the south and west)

Feudal commons (before widespread private ownership) and "Holding (tenure) in Common" with usufruct rights to plots by sefs.

Manor/Commons: Use guided by "customary rules and constraints," low population, agreed-upon limits: resulted in stability, but also rigidity.

Problems of the commons: are they real? Do they continue today in other resources, like fisheries, public lands? Brief discussion of "Tragedy of the Commons" by biologist Garrett Hardin.

This rigidity was not suited to the growth of markets, cities, industry (the industrial revolution started in Britain). Created a class of "workers" who did not need a plot of land to live off of, but needed housing.

So commons ended in "enclosure" (Parliament started in 1235): often argued as organic result of post-Roman control (not unlike land redistribution problems after colonial rule ends in Africa and elsewhere).

Move toward “freehold” (instead of usufruct or aristocratic)

Urban migration and growth in post-feudal Britain caused by industrialization raised the need to get cities better organized: Chartered Cities; Municipal Corps: exist; own land, establish courts, adopt ordinances to solve social problems of urbanization.

Proprietary owners, and trespass and nuisance laws

Especially: Nuisance, and building codes, which grew out of London fire of 1666:

Stone/brick building rules, other building details on size, overhang, etc.

Wider streets

Thames water access

Nuisance banned from central London

Compensation (by gov. if restrictions impeded use of property)—an important provision---King Charles II in a good mood? Why compensate?

In any case, compensation ended up becoming a article in the U.S. Constitution ("Takings" clause), and we’ll talk more about it later.

"Mixed System" imported to U.S.