Land Use

The main strength of Foster and Iaione’s Co-Cities is its offer of governance principles and processes for cities-- recognizing the rich complexity of cities’ comedy of the commons and preventing any tragedy of the anticommons. The book builds on the late Elinor Ostrom’s commons scholarship , both her earlier work on how homogeneous groups manage some common pool resource in a way that allows for individual usage without falling into a tragedy of the commons and her later ob

Co-Cities by Sheila Foster and Christian Iaione is a tour de force. They provide a rigorous empirical analysis of more than 200 global cities, and over 500 case studies within those metropolises, to reconceptualize “the city” for the contemporary age. (p. 24) While many scholars theorize or hypothesize “the city,” Foster and Iaione use surveys, qualitative interviews, detailed case studies, fieldwork, and geo mapping to derive a new and informed urban governance theory. Co-C

Boil notice lifted for Jackson after nearly 7 weeks of water crisis, Mississippi officials announce (nbcnews.com) Michigan charter school spending questioned - Chalkbeat Detroit Gov. Ron DeSantis' Administration Tells Florida Town to Abandon Zoning Reform (reason.com) Chicago Looks to Boost Hiring for People Released From Prison - Bloomberg N.Y. State Vote Could Raise Pressure on Officials Over Hasidic Schools - The New York Times (nytimes.com) Public Libraries Face Thre

Gavin Newsom signs California gun bill modeled after Texas abortion law - CNNPolitics Nearly half of Oregon’s inmate population included in first class action suit of its kind – Oregon Capital Chronicle Code Snitching: Nashvillians Are Weaponizing Metro Codes Against ‘Undesirable’ Neighbors | Cover Story | nashvillescene.com Ceremony marks official return of Bruce's Beach - Los Angeles Times (latimes.com) A College Town Takes On Exclusionary Zoning - Bloomberg Over 2.5 m

What abortion restrictions and laws look like in every state in the U.S. (19thnews.org) Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoes local business 'protection' bill (floridapolitics.com) Mayors and Local Officials Face a Rising Tide of Threats, Harassment - Bloomberg Governor Hochul, U.S. Department of Interior and Onondaga Nation Announce One of the Largest Returns of Land to an Indigenous Nation by Any State | Governor Kathy Hochul No, Texas Can’t Legally Secede From The U.S., Despite Pop

Minneapolis ordered to cease implementation of 2040 plan - StarTribune.com New map highlights home deeds with racist language in Ramsey County | MPR News Florida Abortion Ban Violates Jews' Religious Freedom, Lawsuit Says | U.S. News® | US News Abortion protections in New York fortified ahead of SCOTUS ruling - POLITICO New Jersey aims to lure Georgia firms by warning of ‘dangerous’ anti-abortion policies (ajc.com) Rural America Reels From Violent Crime. ‘People Lost The

SRO Housing, Nearly Zoned Out of Existence, Could Re-Emerge (governing.com) As the Great Salt Lake Dries Up, Utah Faces An ‘Environmental Nuclear Bomb’ - The New York Times (nytimes.com) Study: Denver's STAR program reduced crime, costs | FOX31 Denver (kdvr.com) Historic California report on systemic racism in law and policy hailed by slave reparations advocates | PBS NewsHour Is New York City More Dangerous Than Rural America? - Bloomberg And a bonus story from blog fou

Here is a call for papers from AALS that may interest you: Call for Papers for the Sections on Property and State and Local Government Law at the 2023 AALS Annual Meeting The Property Law and State and Local Government Law Sections are pleased to announce a Call for Papers from which up to four presenters will be selected for a joint program to be held during the AALS 2023 Annual Meeting in San Diego, California from January 4-7, 2023. The program is entitled Homes, Neighborh

Preserving History in a Town that Doesn’t Want to Remember San Francisco’s public nuisance suit against pharma for opioids will go forward Biden is Doubling Down on a Push to Roll Back Single-Family Zoning Laws The Jeffrey Toobin of Local Government A Lake in Florida is Suing to Protect Itself NYC’s Big Clean-Energy Project Poses A Major Climate Test For The Country

DeSantis goes after Disney’s special government status in Florida City leaders threatened employees who wanted to publicly speak on sexual harassment problems in the police department Homeowners fight back against corporate landlords in Charlotte Problems with Opportunity Zones in L.A. Miamicoin and the brave new world of cities and crypto-currency

Cities Move to Sever ‘Sister City’ Ties with Russian Governments When a Tech Company Tries to Be a Good Neighbor In Face of National Apathy, Local Groups Lead Rural Democratic Efforts The Red State Murder Problem Trash City: Here is Why NYC is So Filthy Public Meetings Thwart Housing Reform Where It Is Needed Most

Welcome to the second installment of Swan's Picks! Catch up on some state and local news before the weekend arrives. The Florida House has passed a 15 week abortion ban …and Florida may also pass “the preemption bill to end all preemption bills” Since the mountain lions cannot, California NIMBYs consider whether direct democracy and “the mother of all NIMBY initiatives” can let them escape from state zoning laws …and they figure out a way to crush the dreams of thousands of

The pandemic lockdowns shed light on the state and relevance of our sidewalks. When we could go nowhere, we could walk, exercise, play, paint with chalk, dine, and more on them. Some sidewalks suddenly stop and lead to nowhere, although the streets continue. Others would lead somewhere, if they were not in complete disrepair. Others, while needed, do not exist. While we have paid little attention to sidewalks, they are key to making us healthier, greener, wealthier, and more

This is the last in a four part series. SLoGLaw thanks Chris Elmendorf and Tim Duncheon for this timely treatment of the important issue of affordable housing for California, and urban regions around the country--Ed. The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires state and local agencies that have discretion to choose among possible options to study environmental effects before making their choice. In theory, this leads to better agency decisions. (A contestable cla

Here is Part 3 or this four-part series: The HAA prevents cities from denying or reducing the density of housing projects, but it doesn’t exempt projects from environmental review under CEQA. CEQA spells out time limits for the completion of environmental reviews, but as yesterday’s post explained, those limits have proven illusory in court. So if a city wants to deny a project that the HAA protects, what’s to keep the city from laundering the denial, as it were, through CEQ

In yesterday’s post , we asserted that the recent denial of a downtown housing project in San Francisco portends a generational clash of super-statutes, with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) facing off against the state’s Housing Accountability Act (HAA). In subsequent posts, we will explore the particulars of the CEQA-HAA conflict, as illustrated by the saga of the San Francisco project. Today, however, our goal is simply to show that CEQA and the HAA both hav

Late last month, observers erupted in fury when San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors voted down a proposal to build nearly 500 new homes -- many affordable -- on a downtown site now being used for valet parking. The Board’s vote came short on the heels of a major Court of Appeal decision upholding the state’s Housing Accountability Act (HAA), which the Legislature has greatly strengthened in recent years. The HAA usually requires cities to approve housing projects that a r

Sheila R. Foster & Chiara Pappalardo The Biden Administration has focused his governing agenda on recommitting the United States to the Paris Agreement and advancing environmental and racial justice . While much has been written about this focus, what has not been emphasized is how some of his efforts are a result of scaling up innovations from state and local governments. State and local governments are innovating and piloting policies that can help usher in not just a tr

Last week’s tropical storm Ida was another stark reminder of the realities of climate change and how vulnerable our infrastructure is to...