Do Land Banks Mean Progress Toward Socially Equitable Urban Development?
Observations from New York State
Zachary Small (Cornell University) and Jennifer S. Minner (Cornell University)
Within the US, land banks have become a popular model to transform vacant and abandoned sites into productive properties in cities facing population decline. Land banks wield significant powers, assembling land and disposing of property. Local governments have viewed land banks as an improvement to the municipal management of foreclosed property in cities losing population and a tool to provide community programs that support social equity. However, land banks have been criticized for wielding too much power, concentrating demolitions in poor and majority Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) neighborhoods, and paralleling the flawed top-down policies of mid-century urban renewal.
Without an equity lens, land banks risk exacerbating inequality by demolishing swathes of racialized neighborhoods, repeating or reinforcing patterns of segregation and disinvestment, and gentrifying some areas while neglecting others. Alternatively, they may serve as an important tool in helping to redress the structural racism that has shaped many US. cities. Based on observations from case study research, we argue that resources could be provided to land banks from Federal and State sources to support social equity initiatives. But that resources should be provided under the condition that land banks become vehicles for repairing past White supremacist policies that produced the uneven landscapes that land banks were created to address.
Drawing on interviews with leaders of land banks in New York state, this research explores the different ways land banks approach urban development and social equity. The article includes case studies of three New York State land banks: the Albany County Land Bank, the Newburgh Community Land Bank, and the Buffalo Erie Niagara Land Improvement Company. To understand the racial, socioeconomic and built environment characteristics of the communities, a comparative spatial analysis of land bank properties was performed using data provided by the land banks, 2015 American Community Survey data, and publicly available county and city property data. Land bank staff were interviewed pre-pandemic and then contacted again to understand COVID-19 era conditions and shifts in land bank policies.
Albany County Land Bank properties and demographics
These case studies suggest that land bank leaders were aware of and were addressing issues of social equity to varying degrees. In 2017 and 2018, when this research began, social equity appeared to be viewed as one of many goals, largely subservient to the underlying mission of putting property to productive use. In the COVID-19 era, following the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests that spurred a national dialog around race, the language of social equity and systemic racial inequities had become more common among the case study land banks.
The case studies presented in this article reflect different approaches to addressing land abandonment issues in various contexts. In Albany the land bank has responded to the municipality's backlog of tax-delinquent foreclosed properties with large-scale programs that have moved a significant amount of property to tax-paying owners. In Buffalo, the land bank has navigated the complex politics of the region to work primarily as a tool for suburban local governments, but with new initiatives within the central city. Newburgh’s small-scale place-based model has targeted development in downtown Newburgh, lowering barriers for development within a historic district. In all three cases, land banks have a close relationship with their respective municipality or municipalities, but a desire to distance themselves as distinctive, separate, and flexible non-profit organizations.
Land abandonment policy in shrinking cities has historically lacked the input of communities of color, and has prioritized the municipal tax base over their needs and concerns. The origins of land banks as agents of municipal government focused on “blight” removal has led to a land abandonment policy that has been successful in promoting redevelopment and improving local tax bases, but has only just begun to incorporate social equity goals. Research addressing the mistrust of top-down planning approaches in low-income communities of color provides valuable insights into the role of land banks in forging relationships with the communities they serve. Though widespread demolitions, aggressive code enforcement, and the language of blight removal represent painful parallels to mid-century urban renewal that undermine a social equity mission, the growing embrace of housing affordability, homeownership, and community engagement as an important objective of a land bank suggests a step in the right direction.
If land banks are provided more Federal and State funding, these resources should be tied to either the requirement to look at a range of options for their inventory and consider not only the options best for tax rolls, but also for the community over the long term. Quick demolition fixes may not be the answer to achieving socially equitable outcomes. In fact, land bank directors expressed an underlying concern that demolition may undermine community revitalization efforts, revealing some skepticism about the aggregate effects of widespread demolition policy. As limited funding has forced the land banks to prioritize their operations, demolition appears to have taken a back seat to work that prioritizes reinvestment of existing properties. As lack of funding stifles the ability of land banks to perform demolitions, it appears that the land banks have made a greater effort to prioritize policies that emphasize reinvestment and rehabilitation over demolition. Nevertheless, without these concerns, it is unclear whether or not land-bank leaders would fully acknowledge that the effects of widespread demolition policy undermine their social equity goals.
Land banks potentially have an important role in revisioning their approaches to demolition. Mothballing—the process of boarding up and securing abandoned property until a time when reinvestment can occur—provides a more reinvestment-focused alternative for the hardest hit neighborhoods. The unique ability for land banks to hold property tax-free and indefinitely makes them the ideal entity to carry out this process. While many land banks perform mothballing, political pressures to show immediate results, lack of stable funding sources and land banks’ unwillingness to hold properties long-term often make demolition an all-too common choice. This suggests the need for more research and policy development related to means of mothballing properties to support rehabilitation years later.
Despite promising developments among the case study land banks, we believe all land banks should take more steps toward transforming their practices through a reparative planning framework (see Williams, 2020, cited in article). We believe land banks could serve the needs of residents who have historically been deprived of intergenerational wealth to a greater degree. A reparative planning framework suggests that they should be substantially governed by the communities they seek to repair and that achieving social equity and equitable urban development should become their highest priorities.
Zachary Small is a residential contractor in Madison, Wisconsin and a collaborating researcher with the Just Places Lab at Cornell University.
Jennifer S. Minner is director of Graduate Studies and an associate professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at Cornell University. She directs the Just Places Lab, an interdisciplinary platform for research and creative action centered on community memory, public imagination, and the socially just care of places.