Whose property is this land? The individual and collective dimensions of land ownership

The research explores two paradigms of private property rights and land ownership: (1) the Individual Rights Paradigm, in which property rights are understood as a natural right of individuals and (2) the Community Rights Paradigm, in which property rights are understood as socially created. The research combines theory with field-work. The theoretical component is interdisciplinary in nature (philosophy, economics, political/policy science, law, and sociology), and explores the relationship between individuals and community from the perspective of each paradigm. The field-based component involved a specific land use issue, the scenic regulation of the Lower Wisconsin River. Interviews were conducted with land owners, legislators, land use planners, and other parties involved with the process and development of the regulation.Two of the propositions explored by the research were: (1) whether the land owners affected by the scenic regulation were moving from the Individual Rights Paradigm to the Community Rights Paradigm and (2) whether the debate was characterized by polar paradigms or by a more mixed paradigm. The research concludes that the land owners expanded their notion of the community to which they belonged by being engaged in the process of developing the regulation, and by building an information base regarding the potential impacts of an unregulated Riverway. There is thus less of a polarity of paradigms in this specific case. The broadened concept of community and shared values legitimized the regulation and deepened its social inculcation.The research suggests that land use planners should not view policymaking as an imposition from above, but rather as a deliberative, dialectical, social process in which communication and the development of a knowledge base for informed decisionmaking play a crucial role. Policy approaches that come from a primarily educative or impositional posture will not be broadly accepted to the extent they alienate those who would be regulated, and to the extent they do not allow for the creation of an expanded sense of community.