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Nassaure, J.I., VanWieren, R., Wang, Z., and Kahn, D. 2008. "Vacant Land as a Natural Asset: Enduring Land Values Created by Care and Ownership." Genesee Institute, Flint, MI. "Vacant land can be managed to create enduring environmental values. This project analyzed vacant properties managed by the Genesee County Land Bank Authority (GCLBA) to show how they can be managed to achieve inviting neighborhoods and to protect and build long-term ecosystem services. The project marries the intrinsic strengths of Genesee County - especially its water resources - with its immediate strengths: citizens' engagement and sense of ownership in their own neighborhoods. It takes these strengths one step further by showing how to create enduring value on vacant land by encouraging community engagement in the care and environmental stewardship of vacant property. To achieve these goals, this report suggests that the GCLBA manage its properties across three times frames: NOW - FOR MAINTENANCE. With primary concern for maintaining property in cost-efficient ways that enhance neighborhood appeal while protecting ecosystem services. TRANSFORMATION - AS A RIPENING AMENITY FOR THE FUTURE. Using the locations of the more than 4000 GCLBA properties across the county as an opportunity to create more attractive neighborhoods and environmentally beneficial landscape patterns for the future. FUTURE - AS LAND USE TYPES. Identifying future land uses and landscape characteristics of GCLBA properties to enhance the value of surrounding properties as well as enhance ecosystem services for the entire community."

Mallach, Alan. "Meeting the Challenge of Distressed Property Investors in America's Neighborhoods." 1- 91. New York, NY: LISC, 2010. Introduction: "The mortgage crisis that has gripped the United States since 2007 has resulted in property owners losing millions of properties through foreclosure, with a loss of hundreds of billions of dollars in individual and community assets. Through the foreclosure process, the majority of these properties have been taken back by the mortgage lender and become 'real-estate-owned' or REO properties. For the first year or so after foreclosures took off in 2007, with lenders unprepared to deal with these properties and few buyers of any sort in the marketplace, REO properties often went begging. By the end of 2008, however, that was no longer the case. Private property investors - from "mom & pop" investors buying one or two properties to Wall Street firms and consortia of foreign investors buying entire portfolios - had moved back into the market in large numbers. Since early 2009, the ranks of investors have steadily grown, while it has become less accurate to refer to them as 'REO investors'. Rather than waiting for properties to come into lenders' REO inventories, distressed property investors - as they are more appropriately known - have been increasingly buying houses through short sales, buying non-performing mortgages, or bidding against foreclosing lenders at foreclosure sales. Today, their presence is a major factor in the marketplace of nearly every metropolitan area experiencing large numbers of foreclosures. Their activities are having a powerful effect on neighborhoods generally and on the neighborhood stabilization efforts of cities and non-profit community development corporations (CDCs) in particular. Their effect, however, is a matter of considerable disagreement and even controversy. The purpose of this report is twofold: first, to offer insight into how distressed property investors operate, and how their activ

Gasser, W. (1979). "The Southeast Land Bank." Journal of the American Planning Association. 45 (4), 532-537. Abstract: "The Southeast Land Bank of Baltimore is a community-controlled urban redevelopment corporation created to act as a holding company and broker for recycling neighborhood property. Three approaches were used to protect Upper Fell's Point from speculative pressures and neighborhood blight caused by a proposed road realignment. The Land Bank engaged in acquisition, holding, rehabilitation advice, and marketing of vacant houses in good condition, vacant and dilapidated houses, and absentee-owner, occupied houses that needed complete renovation. Despite the administrative and financial difficulties the Bank faced in its first eighteen months of operation, its experience provides valuable lessons for other community organizations interested in taking an active role in their neighborhoods' revitalization."

Adams, D., De Sousa, C. and S. Tiesdell. 2010. "Brownfield Development: A Comparison of North American and British Approaches." Urban Studies 47(1): 75-104. "Over the past 30-40 years, urban change and deindustrialisation in advanced economies have created a legacy of vacant and derelict land that is increasingly seen as a development opportunity rather than planning problem. This paper investigates how the shared challenge of bringing such brownfield sites back into productive use has been interpreted differently in four countries: the US, Canada, Scotland and England. In each case, the particular policy environment has shaped the brownfield debate in distinctive ways, producing a different set of relations between the public and private sectors in brownfield redevelopment. Through this detailed comparison of the North American and British experience, the paper traces the maturity of policy and seeks to discover whether the main differences in understanding and tackling brownfield land can be attributed primarily to physical, cultural or institutional factors."