Nestor Davidson

Nestor M. Davidson, Professor of Real Estate at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, works primarily in the areas of real estate, property, and the built environment, including affordable housing, fair housing, property theory, and the constitutional dimensions of property law. He also explores constitutional and administrative dimensions of urban governance, the role of law in city life, and the legal relationship between states and local governments.

Professor Davidson has published widely in law journals that include the Columbia Law Review, Michigan Law Review, Virginia Law Review, and the Yale Law Journal. Among the books he has co-authored or co-edited are Property Law: Cases, Policies, & Practices (Aspen 9th ed. 2025) (with Bethany R. Berger, Eduardo Moisés Peñalver, & Joseph William Singer); Property (Aspen 7th ed. 2025) (with Joseph William Singer); Cases and Materials on State and Local Government Law (West 9th ed. 2022) (with Richard Briffault, Laurie Reynolds, Erin Adele Scharff, and Rick Su); Law and the New Urban Agenda (Routledge 2020); The New Preemption Reader (West 2019) (co-editor, with Richard Briffault and Laurie Reynolds); and The Cambridge Handbook of the Law of the Sharing Economy (Cambridge University Press 2018) (co-editor, with John Infranca and Michèle Finck).

Professor Davidson earned his AB from Harvard College and JD from Columbia Law School. After law school, he clerked for Judge David S. Tatel on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for Justice David H. Souter on the Supreme Court of the United States. Professor Davidson practiced commercial real estate law at Latham & Watkins LLP, and has also served as Principal Deputy General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, on the Board of the New York State Housing Finance Agency, and as Chair of the New York City Rent Guidelines Board.