Kevin Jones on the Turn to Commons-Based Property
This text is written in the context of Neighborhood Economics and the author Kevin Jones calls it the collective turn. But what he describes is a turn towards common stewardship and even property models.
Discussion
Kevin Jones:
"Entrepreneurship remains the spark — but shared ownership is the stabilizer.
- Employee-owned businesses and cooperatives anchor jobs and dignity in place. - Collective purchasing, tool libraries, and mutual-aid networks build community-level resilience, not just personal gain. - Perpetual trusts and commons funds make wealth truly intergenerational — public-benefit capital that never leaks away.
Public banking is a movement that plays into this.
II. From Affordable Housing to Community-Controlled Land
Our original lens on “more affordable than affordable” housing now expands into shared stewardship of land itself.
- Land trusts, recoverable grants, and faith-owned developments weave moral purpose into ownership. - The focus shifts from extraction to permanence — homes that stay affordable because ownership itself is reimagined.
III. From Redlining Repair to Structural Rewrites
Repairing the damage of redlining isn’t enough.
We’re learning to re-engineer the system itself — appraisal reform, predistribution zoning, credit-score justice, and anchor partnerships that preempt extraction before it begins.
IV. From Isolated Efforts to the Collective Economy
Neighborhood economies are networks, not silos.
- Shared-use kitchens, production food hubs, and value-added local food enterprises keep dollars circulating locally. - Regenerative agriculture and forestry — including non-timber forest products — tie livelihoods to ecological repair. - This is food-system fairness, not charity: communities owning the means of nourishment.
Collective purchasing, sharing, such as tool libraries in under resourced neighborhoods, and mutual aid also are parts of this.
V. From Infrastructure Spending to Infrastructure Stewardship
When public dollars flow, they can either inflate land values for speculators or seed thriving communities.
- Green and blue bonds, value capture, and community-benefit agreements realign civic investment with moral value. - Infrastructure becomes a commons — broadband, transit, and green space managed for community well-being.
VI. From Economic to Community Health
Community health is not a metaphor; it’s the measure.
- Health–wealth partnerships, trauma-informed development, and faith-led healing initiatives are redefining what “return on investment” means. - The outcome is belonging — the deepest wealth of all."
(https://kevindoylejones1.substack.com/p/the-collective-turn-expanding-the)