Private property's form is crucial to contemporary debates in land use and environmental policy and management. For some, restrictions on private property are so severe as to threaten the very freedoms property is designed to protect. For others, the realities of life in the 21st century require property's reshaping. The re-emergence of private property as an issue of social conflict within US policy and politics is explored in this comprehensive volume. Private property is central to American character, culture and democracy. The founding fathers understood it as key to the liberties America was designed to foster. However, over the last 200 years what one owns has evolved; ownership is different now than for an owner 200, 100, even 50 years ago. Harvey Jacobs has brought together an interdisciplinary, politically divergent group of contributors to speculate on private property's future.

The ownership and control of privately owned lands is critical for many fields. Scholars, students, and professionals of urban and regional planning, geography, law, natural resources, environment, real estate, and landscape architecture will all find this volume of great interest.