Manifesto: We (the public sector, the community, the people at large) through our participatory arrangments of governance, determine the social need, select the project, chose the location, painstakingly communicate and negotiate through all the levels and loops, put in the taxpayer money . . . and the project flowers, values in the area increase. And we want that increase in value, that is the fruit of our cooperative efforts and actions, now available for future public investments. End of story!

Focus: Consistent with our chosen mission, we are focusing on the issues of value capture and land taxes in this context. Such larger and important challenges as land reform and redistribution, while important, are not brought directly into the discussions here. That said they provide an important backdrop to the issues that concern us, and there is every reason to remain up to date on the latest developments and shifts here are as well. (See News Alerts to left for more on that).

Diversity and the art of listening: With a topic like this, which for many people comes heavily trammeled with a long political and rhetorical past, there is a distinct tendency in many parts for, let's call it, non-dialogue. That is to note the marked tendency in rather too many places to want to state the 'truth' and then retreat into the bunker of a closed mind. But with an issue of such great importance, we simply cannot afford that. Thus the objective of this patch of The Commons is come together to create a base of knowledge and experience that can help our cities and societies to break this impasse and put this important tool to work for the good of all. And to do this, we have to become Master Listeners.