This week, the World Bank is convening its 16th annual "Conference on Land and Poverty," which brings together corporations, governments and civil society groups to ostensibly discuss how to "improve land governance."

This past year, on an October afternoon, we carefully secured the last piece of luggage to our truck, said a half-smiling, teary-eyed goodbye to our house, and drove away from our University home. We called that home Aurora, and my wife and I had lived in her dancing lights for...