Land Use And Society: Geography, Law, and Public Policy

by Platt, Rutherford H.

• ISBN13: 9781559636858
• ISBN10: 1559636858
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-06-18
• Publisher: Island Pr

Summary

Land Use and Society is a unique and compelling exploration of interactions among law, geography, history, and culture and their joint influence on the evolution of land use and urban form in the United States. Originally published in 1996, this completely revised, expanded, and updated edition retains the strengths of the earlier version while introducing a host of new topics and insights on the twenty-first century metropolis. This new edition of Land Use and Society devotes greater attention to urban land use and related social issues with two new chapters tracing American city and metropolitan change over the twentieth century. More emphasis is given to social justice and the environmental movement and their respective roles in shaping land use and policy in recent decades. This edition of Land Use and Society by Rutherford H. Platt is updated to reflect the 2000 Census, the most recent Supreme Court decisions, and various topics of current interest such as affordable housing, protecting urban water supplies, urban biodiversity, and "ecological cities." It also includes an updated conclusion that summarizes some positive and negative outcomes of urban land policies to date.

Author Biography

Rutherford H. Platt is professor of geography and planning law in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Geography, Law, and Landscape: Reflections on a Cross-Country Flight	xi
PART I Preliminaries: Land, Geography, and Law	1	(62)
The Meanings and Uses of Land	3	(25)
The Interaction of Geography and Law	28	(35)
PART II From Feudalism to Federalism: The Social Organization of Land Use	63	(144)
Historic Roots of Modern Land Use Institutions	65	(30)
City Growth and Reform in the Nineteenth Century	95	(55)
Building a Metropolitan Nation: 1900--1945	150	(27)
The Polarized Metropolis: 1945--2000	177	(30)
PART III Discordant Voices: Property Ownership, Local Government, and the Courts	207	(126)
Property Rights: The Owner as Planner	209	(27)
The Tapestry of Local Governments	236	(24)
Local Zoning and Growth Management	260	(31)
Land Use and the Courts	291	(42)
PART IV Beyond Localism: The Search for Broader Land Use Policies	333	(86)
Land Programs: Regional, State, Federal	335	(33)
Congress and the Metropolitan Environment	368	(51)
Conclusion Status and Prospects	419	(14)
Acknowledgments	433	(2)
About the Author	435	(2)
Some Common Acronyms	437	(2)
List of Cases	439	(4)
Index	443