On Tue, Jan 4, 2011 at 2:26 AM, Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> wrote:

this is important Sam, could you perhaps write something about this landbank opportunity?

Michel

Michel, I'll definitely write about the abstract concept. The opportunity is something that I am personally cultivating and want to be careful about to help genuinely good outcomes. I want currently to avoid lots of hype around this as the State of Michigan is currently crawling with sleazy land speculators who are posing as "economic developers", because property values are now so incredibly low here. These people are simply buying up the land, pressuring residents to leave, and sitting on it and waiting for hoped-for better times. In the coming 2-3 years, I am serious about creating various forms of co-operatives that can combine land contract purchasing of property with other co-production (food, energy, production, etc). I have some research on this for the specific area I am located in, and will publish it all as I am able to (including to P2P wiki). I think that multiple for-profit businesses can serve these co-operatives. The co-operatives in turn can re-invest in other co-operatives and community efforts. http://www.eastendfood.coop/ is a real-world example of this.

On Tue, Jan 4, 2011 at 2:13 AM, Samuel Rose <[email protected]> wrote:

...

On Mon, Jan 3, 2011 at 10:35 AM, Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> wrote:

...

Sam,

perhaps sympathetic city governments could use the doctrine of eminent domain?

I've not seen too much of this as of yet (not to say it couldn't start happening at any time).

The common concept in the industrial midwest now is the "Land Bank". Example: http://inghamlandbank.org/about-us.php

Basically, land comes into the possession of government by either being abandoned or people not paying taxes on the land. The "land bank"will often re-sell it at substantially lower costs, and this is an opportunity in cities for co-operatives to gain legal possession of land (which in turn could be co-owned by participants in co-op if desired).

-- -- Sam Rose Future Forward Institute and Forward Foundation Tel:+1(517) 639-1552 Cel: +1-(517)-974-6451 skype: samuelrose email: [email protected] http://forwardfound.org http://futureforwardinstitute.org http://hollymeadcapital.com http://p2pfoundation.net http://socialmediaclassroom.com

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-- -- Sam Rose Future Forward Institute and Forward Foundation Tel:+1(517) 639-1552 Cel: +1-(517)-974-6451 skype: samuelrose email: [email protected] http://forwardfound.org http://futureforwardinstitute.org http://hollymeadcapital.com http://p2pfoundation.net http://socialmediaclassroom.com "The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition." - Carl Sagan