122. The Land Episode: How Can We Make Equity Work for the Community?

I'M THE VILLAIN

The real estate market is bananas right now. You may have seen the headlines about around-the-block lines for open houses in San Francisco, or watched houses in your neighborhood go on and off the market the same day on Zillow. A lot of that has to do with the current low interest rates but it also has a lot to do with land being increasingly bought up by private equity and big developers trying to flip houses and even whole neighborhoods. So much of what is going on in the housing market is furthering the already vastly unequal trends in land ownership and equity.

But Wes wants to help create a world in which we can make cooperatives and land trusts more of a realistic option for everyday people. You've all seen the memes about millennials wanting to live in a big house with their 5 best friends; well, Wes thinks we can actually make that happen. He just started in real estate this week but after going to divinity school and working in the church for most of his adult career, now he feels like this new career change is going to be what really puts the values he has cultivated over the years to the test.

As a continuation of our conversation from last week that is broadly about land and faith and the entanglements between and how the ecology of place informs your philosophy of how to build a community, we dive into how so many of these tools (like co-ops, like trusts) have historically been used by wealthy white people to further their interests and how we can convert these tactics to help the historically oppressed as well. We talk about Squirrel Island, an idyllic piece of land off the coast of Maine that is owned by a cooperative, and how President Reagan once visited and wanted to buy in, but was blocked by the cooperative because he also wanted to build a helicopter pad on the island. Things like this might seem like trite examples of communities wielding their collective power, but you can probably imagine how similar powers could be used to protect much more vulnerable, marginalized neighborhoods.

Links:

Wes' real estate instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wesrealtor/

Wes' 5-part podcast on the Farminary: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-cultivators-podcast/id1508064564

Music is The Beauty of Maths by Meydän.

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