Crowdsourcing Land Use

78 Brooklyn Law Review 385 (2013)

U of Chicago, Public Law Working Paper No. 427

32 Pages Posted: 27 Mar 2013 Last revised: 23 Dec 2013

See all articles by Lee Anne Fennell

Lee Anne Fennell

University of Chicago - Law School

Date Written: April 1, 2013

Abstract

Land use conflicts arise from information shortfalls, and avoiding them requires obtaining and using information. Yet traditional forms of land use control operate in relative ignorance about landowner intentions, about preferences for patterns of land use that do not presently exist, and, more fundamentally, about land use impacts as they are experienced on the ground. Because information is expensive to gather and use, this ignorance may be rational. New technological and theoretical advances, however, offer powerful ways to harness and deploy information that lies dispersed in the hands of the public. In this symposium essay, I assess the prospects for an increased role for crowdsourcing in managing land use, as well as the limits on this approach. Governments must do more than elicit, aggregate, coordinate, and channel the preferences, intentions, and experiences of current and potential land users; they must also set normative side constraints, manage agendas, and construct appropriately scaled platforms for compiling and using information.

Suggested Citation

Fennell, Lee Anne, Crowdsourcing Land Use (April 1, 2013). 78 Brooklyn Law Review 385 (2013), U of Chicago, Public Law Working Paper No. 427, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2239760

Lee Anne Fennell (Contact Author)

University of Chicago - Law School ( email )

1111 E. 60th St.
Chicago, IL 60637
United States
773-702-0603 (Phone)

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