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Cander, Alan Drew. The law and practice of municipal land assembly. Retrieved from https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/T37D2THT
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TitleThe law and practice of municipal land assembly
NameCander, Alan Drew (author), Lake, Robert W. (chair), Newman, Kathe (internal member), Listokin, David (internal member), Weber, Rachel (outside member), Rutgers University, Graduate School - New Brunswick
Degree Date2011-05
Date Created2011
SubjectPlanning and Public Policy, City planning--New Jersey--Newark, Community development, Urban--New Jersey--Newark
DescriptionUrban redevelopment involves the renovation of deteriorating city areas through the rehabilitation or replacement of dilapidated buildings and underutilized parcels with new land uses to meet specific economic goals. Municipalities may invoke eminent domain to facilitate land acquisition for redevelopment. However, eminent domain is only one land assembly tool among other processes and strategies - including blight investigation and designation - that municipalities use to assemble land for redevelopment. This dissertation addresses large scale processes and broader issues that impact how municipalities make land available for redevelopment through formal and informal land assembly processes. It is based on larger questions centering on what land assembly and blight determination strategies municipalities use in their redevelopment efforts, how eminent domain factors into such processes, and how regulations and case law influence municipal redevelopment processes. Using a three-pronged qualitative methodology based on semi-structured interviews, archival analysis, and site visits, I conducted case studies of four urban redevelopment projects (two in one neighborhood) in Newark, New Jersey spanning a fifty-year period and revealing several overarching themes. I found that land assembly processes and strategies have been aimed at maintaining municipal control over the redevelopment process. City officials have considered Newark a city for sale in which land is a transferrable, deliverable commodity. The need to chase funding streams has heavily influenced redevelopment efforts. Private sector involvement in Newark’s earlier urban renewal efforts challenges the conventional view that privatization did not emerge in redevelopment until the neoliberalism of the 1970s. After devolution, as private sector initiatives became increasingly important to Newark’s redevelopment efforts, the focus of blight designation shifted from deteriorated outlying neighborhoods to potentially blighted areas downtown where private investment was less risky. Site targeting and land delivery have often preceded blight designation by many months: blight declaration has tended to be a formality. Grass roots opposition has profoundly impacted redevelopment efforts. Finally, much Newark’s land assembly process has centered on formal and informal meetings and agreements between public and private actors who target specific sites, suggesting that the public and the media have overemphasized the role of eminent domain in redevelopment efforts.
NotePh.D.
NoteIncludes bibliographical references
Noteby Alan Drew Cander
Genretheses, ETD doctoral
Persistent URLhttps://doi.org/doi:10.7282/T37D2THT
Languageeng
CollectionGraduate School - New Brunswick Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Organization NameRutgers, The State University of New Jersey
RightsThe author owns the copyright to this work.