The Public Nature of Private Property

What, exactly, is private property? Or, to ask the question another way, what rights to intrude does the public have in what is generally accepted as private property? The answer, perhaps surprisingly to some, is that the public has not only a significant interest in regulating the use of private property but also in defining it, and establishing its contour and texture. In The Public Nature of Private Property, therefore, scholars from the United States and the United Kingdom challenge traditional conceptions of private property while presenting a range of views on both the meaning of private property, and on the ability, some might say the requirement, of the state to regulate it.

Robin Paul Malloy is E.I. White Chair and Distinguished Professor of Law at Syracuse University, and editor of Ashgate's Law, Property and Society series. Michael Diamond is Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center, and author of Corporations: A Contemporary Approach (Carolina Academic Press, 2008).

Contents: Preface, Michael Diamond; The public nature of property rights and the property nature of public law, J. Peter Byrne; Explaining the persistent myth of property absolutism, David Fagundes; Shared equity housing: cultural understanding and the meaning of ownership, Michael Diamond; Crisis and the public-private divide in property, Nestor M. Davidson and Rashmi Dyal-Chand; Eviction and the public interest: the right to respect for home in English law, Lorna Fox O'Mahony; Opening neighborhoods to people with mobility impairment: property, disability and inclusive design housing, Robin Paul Malloy; Who should fix the sink? Addressing maintenance and repairs in limited equity cooperatives, Jennie O'Flanagan; Preserving public peace, protecting private property, Susan S. Kuo; Adult adoption of lovers and spouses to help ensure their inheritance: fair or foul?, Terry L. Turnipseed; Table of cases; Table of statutes and legislative material; Bibliography; Index.