People congregate in cities to improve their prospects for social and economic interactions. As Jane Jacobs recognized, the layout of streets in a city's central business district can significantly affect individuals' ability to obtain the agglomeration benefits that they seek. The costs and...

Murray Rothbard and other anarcho-capitalists would abolish all governments. Individuals instead would voluntarily subscribe to the services of one of a number of competing private protective associations. This vision is a pipe dream. Building on the ideas of small-government classical liberals...

Since the 1970s, covenants running with the land have tethered a large majority of the new housing units produced in the United States. These private restraints usually continue for generations, until a majority or super-majority of covenant beneficiaries affirmatively vote to amend or terminate...

As a result of his ownership of property, Rip Van Winkle might have incurred a variety of criminal and civil liabilities during the course of his twenty-year sleep. Possibilities are a conviction for neglecting care of his livestock, civil liability to a neighbor for having failed to contribute...

Alexis de Tocqueville and Robert Putnam are but two of the many admirers of the countless private associations that lie at the core of civil society. This article seeks to advance understanding of the law-like activities of these associations. Residential community associations and sports...

Viewing property rights as a "bundle of sticks" can be descriptively clarifying because the law commonly entitles an owner of a particular resource to split up entitlements in it. Nonetheless, Thomas Merrill and Henry Smith, the most prominent critics of the metaphor, assert that this conception...