Untying The Land Knot

This book argues that access to industrial and commercial land is crucial to investment, but sustainable development requires government policy measures that balance investors needs with broader public interests.

Access to well-secured, well-zoned and well-serviced land is a crucial condition for industrial and commercial investment. In many developing countries, where the land market remains underdeveloped and the land governance framework is weak, systemic policy and institutional reforms are needed to bring security, efficiency and transparency to the process of business access to land. Land policy reform is challenging, politically, institutionally and technically. It must balance business, social and environmental imperatives to succeed. Empirical evidence suggests that a pragmatic approach taking one step at a time with prioritized targets while keeping the long-term objectives in sight helps mitigate risks, speed up the investment process, and bring economic benefits to broad population. These successful first steps can also prepare the path for more comprehensive reforms.

In this work, Carl Anthony shares his perspectives as an African-American child in post-World War II Philadelphia; a student and civil rights activist in 1960s Harlem; a traveling student of West African architecture; and an architect, planner, and environmental justice advocate in Berkeley. He contextualizes this within American urbanism and human origins, making profoundly personal both African American and American urban histories as well as planetary origins and environmental issues, to not only bring a new worldview to people of color, but to set forth a truly inclusive vision of our shared planetary future. The Earth, the City, and the Hidden Narrative of Race connects the logics behind slavery, community disinvestment, and environmental exploitation to address the most pressing issues of our time in a cohesive and foundational manner. Most books dealing with these topics and periods silo issues apart from one another, but this book contextualizes the connections between social movements and issues, providing tremendous insight into successful movement building. Anthony's rich narrative describes both being at the mercy of racism, urban disinvestment, and environmental injustice as well as fighting against these forces with a variety of strategies. Because this work is both a personal memoir and an exposition of ideas, it will appeal to those who appreciate thoughtful and unique writing on issues of race, including individuals exploring their own African American identity, as well as progressive audiences of organizations and community leaders and professionals interested in democratizing power and advancing equitable policies for low-income communities and historically disenfranchised communities.

This collection clarifies the background of land and property problems in conflict-affected settings, and explores appropriate policy measures for peace-building. While land and property problems exist in any society, they can be particularly exacerbated in conflict-affected settings – characterized by unstable security, weak governance, loss of proper documentation as well as the return of refugees and Internally Displaced Persons. Unless these problems are properly addressed, they can destabilize fragile political order and hinder economic recovery. Although tackling land and property problems is an important challenge for peace-building, it has been relatively neglected in recent debates about liberal peace-building as a result of the strong focus on state-level institution building, such as security sector reforms and transitional justice. Using rich original data from eight conflict-affected countries, this book examines the topic from the viewpoint of State-society relationship. In contrast to previous literature, this volume analyses land and property problems in conflict-afflicted areas from a long-term perspective of state-building and economic development, rather than concentrating only on the immediate aftermath of the conflict. The long-term perspective enables not only an understanding of the root causes of the property problems in conflict-affected countries, but also elaboration of effective policy measures for peace. Contributors are area specialists and the eight case study countries have been carefully selected for comparative study. The collection applies a common framework to a diverse group of countries – South Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Cambodia, Timor-Leste, Colombia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

On May 5, 1993, second-graders Christopher Byers, Stevie Branch, and Michael Moore disappeared from their West Memphis, Arkansas, homes. The following afternoon, their nude, beaten, and bound bodies were discovered in a drainage ditch less than a mile away. After a troublesome confession, three local teenagers, later dubbed the West Memphis Three, were arrested, tried, and convicted in early 1994. Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley received life sentences, while ringleader Damien Echols went to death row. Three years later, the documentary film Paradise Lost premiered on HBO, and the effect on viewers was dramatic. Many became skeptical of the verdicts and also felt one of the fathers of the victims was a better suspectJohn Mark Byers. In Untying the Knot, author Greg Day tells the true story of John Mark Byers and the about-face he made to free the men convicted of the crime. Day exposes the propaganda campaign used to convince a gullible public that Byers was complicit in the deaths of his wife and son. Based on court transcripts and hours of personal interviews, Untying the Knot explores all the case evidence while interweaving dialogues and statements. It traces the life of Byers from his roots in rural Arkansas, to his sons murder and the death of his wife, to his ultimate imprisonment in 1999. It reveals a man redeemed by prison and whose change of heart changed his life. Day has captured the essence of a towering personality engulfed by an impossible situation. John Mark Byers is an immensely complex character, and Untying the Knot pulls no punches in revealing the man in all his seeming contradictions. John Douglas, Mindhunter