Governing the Fragmented Metropolis


Book Description

Today the challenges facing our nation's metropolitan regions are enormous: demographic change, aging infrastructure, climate change mitigation and adaptation, urban sprawl, spatial segregation, gentrification, education, housing affordability, regional equity, and more. Unfortunately, local governments do not have the capacity to respond to the interlocking set of problems facing metropolitan regions, and future challenges such as population growth and climate change will not make it easier. But will we ever have a more effective and sustainable approach to developing the metropolitan region? The answer may depend on our ability to develop a means to govern a metropolitan region that promotes population density, regional public transit systems, and the equitable development of city and suburbs within a system of land use and planning that is by and large a local one. If we want to plan for sustainable regions we need to understand and strengthen existing metropolitan planning arrangements. Christina D. Rosan observes that policy-makers and scholars have long agreed that we need metropolitan governance, but they have debated the best approach. She argues that we need to have a more nuanced understanding of both metropolitan development and local land use planning. She interviews over ninety local and regional policy-makers in Portland, Denver, and Boston, and compares the uses of collaboration and authority in their varying metropolitan planning processes. At one end of the spectrum is Portland's approach, which leverages its authority and mandates local land use; at the other end is Boston's, which offers capacity building and financial incentives in the hopes of garnering voluntary cooperation. Rosan contends that most regions lie somewhere in between and only by understanding our current hybrid system of local land use planning and metropolitan governance will we be able to think critically about what political arrangements and tools are necessary to support the development of environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable metropolitan regions.
















Land Use Controls


Book Description

Land Use Controls: Cases and Materials emphasizes an interdisciplinary approach that weaves historical, social, and economic causes and effects of legal doctrine. The casebook also brings out the functional relationships between formally unrelated routes of law—statutes, ordinances, constitutional doctrines, and common law—by focusing on their practical deployment, developers, neighbors, planners, politicians, and their empirical effects on outcomes like neighborhood quality, housing supply, racial segregation, and tax burdens. A thematic framework illuminates the connections among multiple topics under land law and gives attention to the factual and political context of the cases and aftermath of decisions. Dynamic pedagogy features original introductory text, cases, notes, excerpts from law review articles, and visual aids (maps, charts, graphs) throughout. New to the Fifth Edition: A focus on affordability and the new conflicts over urban zoning A fully updated treatment of local administrative law Recent constitutional rulings, including up-to-date Supreme Court decisions on exactions and regulatory takings Thoroughly updated notes, with recent cases, law review literature, and empirical studies Professors and students will benefit from: Distinguished authorship by respected scholars and professors with a range of expertise An interdisciplinary approach combining historical, social, political, and economic perspectives and offering dynamic opportunities for analysis along with broad legal coverage Concise but comprehensive treatment of the legal issues in private and public regulation of land development, including environmental justice, building codes and subdivision regulations, and the federal role in urban development A thematic framework illuminating connections among multiple discrete topics under land law and the factual and political context of cases and aftermath of decisions Excellent coverage and dynamic pedagogy