Establishment and Operation of Private Land Credit Institutions in Penza Province in the Late 1860s – mid 1880s

Introduction. The abolition of public credit institutions in the first half of the 19th century meant that following after the peasant reform, private landowners were forced to rely entirely on their ability to conduct economic activities, they desperately needed the money demanded for the capitalist modernization of their estates. It was important under such circumstances the appearance in the mid-1860s of private land banks that have granted land collateral loans. Materials and Methods. The study of the claimed problem required the involvement of a number of historical and economic methods: historical, statistical and quantitative. At the same time, the question of the amount of debt owed to private land banks was examined on the basis of a comprehensive analysis of statistical data on land credit published by a committee of congresses of representatives of Russian land credit institutions. Results. The article analyzes the main indicators of the activity of the joint-stock land banks in the first two decades of their operation, considers the characteristics of the establishment and development of the private land credit system, the volume of loans issued, the size of the mortgaged land, the amount of the loans are shown by their regional characteristics. Discussion and Conclusions. Set up in mid-nineteenth century the system of equity land credit, which focuses on the granting of land mortgages by private landowners, has played an important role in the processes of land ownership mobilization and the development of capitalism in the agricultural sector. Private credit institutions were one of the most important components of the land credit system, and the activities of these institutions in the territory of the governorate in question resulted in: that almost a quarter of all privately owned land had been deposited in them.

Land as airspace: How rezoning privatizes public space (and why governments should not give it away for free)

A popular but contested view is that mass rezoning is an essential policy measure to address housing affordability. Often obscured in debates about this measure is that rezoning involves the privatization of public space. We clarify the nature of the policy by recognizing that property rights over land are, conceptually, a bundle of socially negotiated rights to parcels of airspace. This view shows that rezoning to provide rights to airspace for existing landowners is not costless. It involves transferring valuable property rights from the public to existing private landowners for free, creating a more unequal distribution of property rights ownership without necessarily generating faster housing development. We argue that giving away public rights to airspace should not be done for free and explore what policy measures retain value from residential rezoning for the public.

Perceptions of NRCS Assistance with Prescribed Fires on U.S. Private Lands: A Regionally Stratified Case Study

The benefits of prescribed fires are recognized throughout the United States, but the ability to assist with prescribed fire application on private land by government agencies has many possible constraints and challenges. The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), a federal agency, is mandated to assist private landowners with meeting land management objectives, but the ability of employees to utilize prescribed fire as a management tool is complex. We conducted a regionally stratified online survey of NRCS employees across the United States to determine the barriers inhibiting their ability to assist private landowners with prescribed fire application. In January of 2020, we recruited 101 NRCS rangeland and grazing land specialists to participate in the survey with 50 completing the survey (regional sample size: Central n = 14, Northeast n = 5, Southeast n = 12, West n = 19). A majority (82%) of respondents thought prescribed fires were staying the same or increasing in number. Regional differences in assistance types were significant for conducting burns and providing technical education, but not for other assistance types. Regional differences for perceived constraints were also significant for how the public understands the risks of prescribed fire and the ecological constraints but not for state policy, federal policy, liability, or public understanding of prescribed fire benefits. Overall and across regions, the NRCS survey participants perceived federal policies, liability, and private landowners’ lack knowledge of prescribed fire limits their ability to assist in the utilization of prescribed fire. Creating a national policy that allows a streamlined process for NRCS employees to assist with prescribed fire implementation and collaborative initiatives to improve private landowner knowledge gaps has the potential to improve prescribed fire application across the United States.

The birth of oppida: small towns in Hungary in the Angevin period

This article revisits the origins of small towns in medieval Hungary from the perspective of their owners and seigneurs. The fourteenth-century development of small towns on the estates of private landowners resulted from the coincidence of several factors. Among these, the article considers the intersection of royal and private interests. The aristocrats’ concern to endow their estate centres with privileges or attract new settlers to their lands was dependent on royal approval; likewise, the right to hold annual fairs had to be granted by the kings, and one had to be a loyal retainer to be worthy of these grants. The royal model of supporting the mendicant orders, which were gaining ground in Hungary from the thirteenth century onwards, added a further dimension to the overlords’ development strategies. This shows that royal influence, directly or indirectly, had a major impact on the development of towns on private lands in the Angevin period (1301–87).

Private assets for public benefit: the challenge of long-term management of domestic rainwater tanks

This study explored the relationship private landowners have with their domestic rainwater tank and how that relationship influences the reliability of privately operated rainwater tanks for long-term performance and delivery of service. It found that tank owners generally placed a high value on their tank, desired to have them fully operational and made a reasonable effort to keep them functioning. However, the frequency and extent of maintenance action and effort was variable, and in the context of a private residence, rainwater tanks were typically afforded a low relative priority for repair when compared with other residential assets. This low relative priority could be a primary driver for the reported delay between when a fault occurs with the tank and when it is repaired. This ‘repair lag’ means that a portion of domestic rainwater tanks are likely to be non-operational at any one time. When planning a decentralised system for the management of stormwater, redundancies should be included to cover these gaps in service delivery. It is also recommended that programmes that support private landowners to maintain their rainwater tanks are implemented to minimise repair lag.

North Lake Shore Drive

This chapter focuses on the growing conception of the lakefront as an environmental amenity and the completion of Lake Shore Drive and associated parks. The chapter traces the construction north from the original Lincoln Park to Hollywood Avenue. It argues that the emerging clarification of ownership following the title to the bed of Lake Michigan set off a series of seismic disturbances along the lakeshore and laid the groundwork, legally speaking, for the construction of north Lake Shore Drive. The chapter examines the riparian rights of the private landowners farther north along Lake Michigan's shore. It illustrates how the Lincoln Park Commission (LPC) devised two methods for acquiring the riparian rights of landowners in order to extend Lincoln Park to the north. The chapter also introduces Edward O. Brown, a creative lawyer working for the LPC in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, who conceived and advanced the ideas about the boundary-line mechanism and the judicial elimination of any right to wharf out in Lake Michigan. The chapter examines how Brown's skillful manipulation of the courts to eliminate the right to wharf out turned out to be a good thing.

Introduction

This chapter seeks to explain how Chicago came to have such a beautiful, well-tended, and publicly accessible lakefront — the city's most treasured asset. It discusses the exploration of legal sources which makes the study broadly relevant to those interested in environmental and urban history. The chapter also identifies what sort of legal regime will strike the right balance between public and private rights, arguing that private rights — such as the right of private landowners to sue to protect their view of the water — will do more to protect the interests of the general public than will more explicitly public remedies. The chapter sheds important light on the circumstances that gave rise to the doctrine on the Chicago lakefront, how the doctrine has performed in its original setting relative to other legal doctrines, how it was transformed in the twentieth century, and how its legacy in protecting public resources has been mixed, in both its original and its transformed versions. Ultimately, it highlights the importance of law and, in particular, legal property rights in the long-term development of an important resource like the lakefront.