Public Property, Law and Society: Owning, Belonging, Connecting in the Public Realm

by John Page

Overview

This book examines the almost entirely neglected realm of public property, identifying and describing a number of key organizing principles around which a nascent jurisprudence of public property may be developed.

In property law terms, the public realm is lost to plain view. Despite the vast acreage of public lands, or the extensive tracts of private lands over which public rights subsist, there is little commensurate scholarly discussion of the ideas, theories, practices, and laws of public property. This is no accident. Public property has been marginalized and pushed to the periphery for centuries, a consequence of the dominant discourse of private property, and its enclosing, encroaching tendencies. This book explores the rich diversity of the public estate, of what the public realm means for us, the general public, canvassing what we may ‘own’, where we may ‘belong’, or not, and how we may ‘connect’ through a shared use and enjoyment of public place and space. To better understand public property is to better value its critical public-wealth. Whether overlooked, over-used, or under threat of imminent loss, this book maintains that our loved (and not so loved) public spaces are essential components of our diverse, functioning, and optimistically livable human geographies. As such, they demand legal protection.

This important and original book will be of considerable interest to scholars and others with interests in property and land law, socio-legal studies, legal geography and urban studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367375980
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	12/30/2020
Pages:	188
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

John Page is a Professor of Law at the School of Law and Justice at Southern Cross University, Australia.

Table of Contents

List of tables vii

Acknowledgments viii

1 Introduction 1

2 Of public order 9

2.1 Introduction 9

2.2 Scotland - a rich history of public real rights 12

2.3 US federal public lands - one-third of a nation, one-half of the West 17

2.4 New Zealand's public outdoors - predominant purpose, bi-cultural context 21

2.5 England - the invisible, disappearing public realm? 25

2.6 Conclusions 29

3 Of public owning 36

3.1 Introduction 36

3.2 Public ownership: a rights-based analysis 37

3.3 A spectrum of public ownerships 41

3.4 An a-spatial, non-binary public owning 47

3.5 Contested public ownerships in the colonial settler state 50

3.6 Thinking public ownership differently 53

4 Of sociability, human flourishing, and the well-lived public life 62

4.1 Introduction 62

4.2 Sociability 63

4.3 Propriety and human flourishing 67

4.4 Public happiness 70

4.5 The (im)perfect well-lived life 72

5 Of public belonging 80

5.1 Introduction 80

5.2 Public property and belonging 81

5.3 Public property, place and space 85

5.4 Public property and community 87

5.5 Belonging relationally in public space and place 92

5.6 Conclusion 98

6 Of public connection 103

6.1 Introduction 103

6.2 The literary pedestrian, and her normative ways 104

6.3 The theorizing pedestrian 109

6.4 The doctrinal pedestrian 116

6.5 Conclusion: the pedestrian, connection, and public real property 126

7 Of democracy, protest, and the public square ' 136

7.1 Introduction 136

7.2 The centrality of public things 137

7.3 Free speech, political communication, and the public square 141

7.4 Democracy in public action - of protest and dissent 146

7.5 Conclusion 151

8 Conclusion 158

8.1 The lie of the (public) land 158

8.2 Public property vs. public space 161

8.3 The commons vs. the public 163

8.4 Flow vs. fixity 164

8.5 Public purpose vs. public use 165

8.6 Spatial justice vs. private privilege 167

Index 173