Community Land Trusts and Informal Settlements in the Global South

During the fifty years since the first community land trust (CLT) was founded by African-American civil rights activists in the United States, CLTs have spread far beyond their country of origin. Most of this growth has occurred in the Global North, but CLTs are now also being formed in a growing number of countries in the Global South.

The fertile seedbed for CLT development in this part of the world has been informal settlements. These are residential areas where people have built their o...