The Property Puzzle

This Article constructs a political and institutional model of property, offering an innovative approach for addressing some of property's most puzzling features. The central thesis of this Article is that regardless of our preferred substantive justifications for property, dramatic decisions about the giving or taking of property, such as the full-scale nonconsensual transfer of title and possession in land from one person to another, should be chiefly made by explicit and publicly-reasoned resolutions of governmental entities entrusted with the power and duty of collective decision making - chiefly legislative and administrative bodies - supervised in turn by the institution of judicial review