ABSTRACT
Building on arguments for the re-appropriation of our urban commons and the search for alternatives growing in the cracks of capitalism (Blomley 2004b; Chatterton 2010; Hodkinson 2012a, 2012b; Ward 1985), this paper explores how mutual housing alternatives may be established in disinvested inner-city neighbourhoods, to provide effective institutional blueprints for the democratic stewardship of place. The main part of the paper is an in-depth case study of a campaign in Granby, Liverpool, for a community land trust (CLT) to take back empty homes under community ownership after decades of disinvestment and demolition plans. Incorporated as a legal body in 2011, the “Granby Four Streets” CLT is an innovative attempt to establish an urban CLT as a vehicle for neighbourhood regeneration; making its mark at an opportune moment when large-scale demolition-and-rebuild programmes, notably HMR, have prematurely drawn to a halt following the financial crisis and the imposition of austerity (Pinnegar 2012). After years of anti-demolition campaigning by local residents and failed negotiations between the city council, housing associations, and private developers-a deal has finally been brokered to rehabilitate the four streets as a CLT-led vision.
