Who Owns America: Uncovering Ownership, Empowering Communities

The City Club of Cleveland Podcast

Who Owns America ? (WHOA) is an ambitious effort by the Center for Geospatial Solutions (CGS) at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy to uncover land ownership patterns with unprecedented accuracy, ease, and nuance. By equipping municipalities, states, and nonprofits with comprehensive, tailored analyses of ownership, WHOA helps purpose-driven organizations understand and respond to their challenges, including unprecedented investment by institutional investors in moderate income housing across America.\r\n\r\nFounded to help people and the planet keep up with the pace of change, the Lincoln Institute's CGS specializes in improving how data is accessed and applied across boundaries - within an organization, between partners, and across sectors or jurisdictions. Its WHOA analysis uniquely fuses parcel data with environmental and social information to unlock a holistic understanding of our systemic challenges. To date, the organization has helped reveal property ownership patterns in dozens of cities and states, including Cincinnati, helping local leaders to take action to drive more equitable outcomes.