#land-justice

#land-justice

Amid all the tumult of 2025, one idea keeps floating to the surface-the importance of connection. At NPQ, that means connecting with our readers. Connecting people across the sector with each other. Connecting people with ideas, and ideas to action. Here, we're featuring just a few of the columns and collections we produced in this year that kept us connected and in conversation.

In their contributions, the authors touch on a wide range of topics, including the need to connect land justice with broader struggles for liberation, the role foundations and faith-based institutions (like the Roman Catholic Church) can play to leverage their own assets to contain speculation, how community-based institutions like cooperatives and community land trusts can help align land uses with human values, the value of member education and leadership development, and the need to push back against mainstream models of individual land ownership.

I have lived all my life in Los Angeles, but I have never seen anything like the level of destruction we experienced this past January due to the fires that ripped through our neighborhoods. In real time, I saw the devastating impact of climate change. At the same time, landlords across the city were spiking rents because the wellbeing of their tenants was last on their list of considerations.

In Seattle, for many Asian migrants, Chinatown-International District (also known by its initials CID) is our home away from home. Located on Coast Salish lands in Seattle, the CID is a diverse multiracial community, including many immigrants from across Asia, many Indigenous, Black, and Latine communities; and working-class people of all backgrounds. The city government estimates that residents in the neighborhood speak 17 languages in addition to English, the most common being Mandarin, Cantonese, and Vietnamese.