Collaborative Interaction as a Pathway to Realized Publicness: Examining the Transformation of Open Space Policy

Public administrators play a distinct role in modern governance, responsible for ensuring that government actions serve the public good. As governance increasingly relies on nongovernmental actors, this responsibility has grown more complex. This is particularly true in open space policy, where land trusts have become major actors in private conservation efforts. While effective in preserving land, these efforts often fall short in serving broader public interests. Using Land Trust Alliance census data and propensity score matching methods, I find preliminary evidence that participation in formal landscape-scale collaborative initiatives is associated with greater public access to conserved lands, one measurable dimension of realized publicness.