Owning, Belonging, Connecting in the Public Realm
Focusing on the largely overlooked area of public property, the book outlines essential organizing principles for establishing a foundational jurisprudence. It delves into the legal frameworks and concepts that could shape the understanding and management of public property, offering insights that could influence future legal interpretations and policies.
Using the forest as a thematic device, Clark and Page explore the tensions that pervade our propertied relationships; between commodity and community, abstraction and context, and private enclosure and the public square. They draw on a range of case studies including the 13th century Forest Charter, Thomas More's Utopia, the Diggers' radical agrarianism, the Paris Commune's battle for the right to the city, and Australian forest protestors of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. By analysing these movements and their contexts, Clark and Page illustrate the origin, history and legal status of the lawful forest and its modern-day companions. Although the dominant spatial paradigm is one where private rights prevail, this book shows that communal relationships with land have always been part of our law and culture.