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Samsa, Matthew J. (2008). "Reclaiming Abandoned Properties: Using Public Nuisance Suits and Land Banks to Pursue Economic Redevelopment," Cleveland State Law Review 56:189-232. Excerpt from Report: "This Note examines the methods of attacking abandonment. The next section, Part II, describes the problems presented by abandoned and vacant housing. Part III examines the effectiveness of code enforcement and traditional tax foreclosure. Part IV analyzes privatized nuisance abatement suits and receiverships. Part V discusses land banks. Part VI argues that using broadly empowered privatized nuisance abatement suits for individual parcels and land banks for mass acquisitions is the most effective means of addressing abandoned property, and Part VII concludes with a brief review of the overall abandonment discussion.

Been , Vicki and Voicu, Ioan, "The Effect of Community Gardens on Neighboring Property Values" (2006). New York University Law and Economics Working Papers. Paper 46. http://lsr.nellco.org/nyu_lewp/46 DRAFT PAPER - PLEASE DO NOT CITE WITHOUT PERMISSION Abstract: "Cities across the United States increasingly are debating the best way to use vacant "infill" lots. The community garden movement is one of the major contenders for the space, as are advocates for small public "pocket" parks and other green spaces. To allocate the land most efficiently and fairly, local governments need sound research about the value of such gardens and parks to their host communities. At the same time, cities are looking for new ways of financing the development and maintenance of public garden and park space. Some have turned to tax increment financing to generate resources, other are introducing impact fees or special assessments to cover the costs of urban parks. In order to employ such financing mechanisms, both policy concerns and legal constraints require local governments to base their charges on sound data about the impacts green spaces have on the value of the neighboring properties that would be forced to bear the incidence of the tax or fee. Despite the clear public policy need for such data, our knowledge about the impacts community gardens and other such spaces have on surrounding neighborhoods is quite limited. No studies have focused specifically on community gardens, and those that have examined the property value impacts of parks and other open space are cross-sectional studies inattentive to when the park opened, so that it is impossible to determine the direction of the causality of any property value differences found. The existing literature also has paid insufficient attention to qualitative differences among the parks studied and to differences in characteristics of the surrounding neighborhoods that might affect the parks' impacts

Robinson and Cole, 2007. "URBAN BLIGHT - An Analysis of State Blight Statutes and Their Implications for Eminent Domain Reform," REALTOR, October 2007. Available at: http://www.cdfa.net/cdfa/cdfaweb.nsf/pages/NARBlight.html/$file/blight_study_revised.pdf