What's New

January 2004

Books and Documents

Environmental Planning

Daniels, Tom, and Katherine Daniels. The Environmental Planning Handbook: For Sustainable Communities and Regions. Chicago: Planners Press, 2003.

A hands-on and thorough approach sets The Environmental Planning Handbook apart. The authors tell how to assess local environment conditions and create an action plan. They discuss the role of environmental law and economics, ethics, and ecology in decision making. The core of the book covers planning for public health (water supply and quality, solid waste and recycling, and toxic waste), natural areas (landscapes, wildlife habitat, wetlands, coastal zones, and hazard and disaster mitigation), working landscapes (farming, ranching, forestry, and mining), and the built environment (transportation, energy, sustainability, and greenfield development).

Growth Management

Kopits, Elizabeth, Virginia McConnell, and Margaret Walls. A Market Approach to Land Preservation. Washington, D.C.: Resources for the Future, 2003.

Many elected officials in state and local government have made controlling "sprawl" a priority, and the 2002 Farm Bill authorized nearly $600 million over six years for the federal Farmland Protection Program. Here, we examine a market-based policy tool for preserving farmland and open space transferable development rights (TDRs).

Information Technology

Komninos, Nicos. Intelligent Cities: Innovation, Knowledge Systems and Digital Spaces. London: Spon Press, 2002.

At the turn of the century some cities and regions in Europe, Japan and the USA, displayed an exceptional capacity to incubate and develop new knowledge and innovations. The favorable environment for research, technology and innovation created in these areas was not immediately obvious, yet it was of great significance for a development based on knowledge, learning, and innovation. Intelligent Cities focuses on these environments of innovation, and the major models (technopoles, innovating regions, intelligent cities) for creating an environment-supporting technology, innovation, learning, and knowledge-based development.

Planning

Solomon, Daniel. Global City Blues. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2003.

"This is a book about the making of cities and the buildings that compose them. It is about the conditions under which an architect engaged in those activities now works, how those conditions evolved and why they are changing. It is about the qualities of life that are threatened by the ways cities are built at the beginning of the 21st century and intelligent response to those threats. It is about why the city planning ideas and the cultural Cuisinart that came in the box with modern architecture are a lingering menace." From Global City Blues.

Planning Law

Blaesser, Brian W. Discretionary Land Use Controls: Avoiding Invitations to Abuse of Discretion. s.l.: Thomson-West, 2003.

This practice-oriented handbook provides clear guidance about discretionary land use control and local government land use decision-making. It focuses on issues related to abuse of discretion by local governments in making their land use decisions. It explains not only what the law is, but suggests practical and proven ways to limit invitations to such abuse of discretion. Discusses variances, special use permits, site plan review, planned unit developments, contract/conditional zoning and development agreements, and design review.

Gerard, Jules B. Local Regulation of Adult Businesses: 2004 Edition. St. Paul, Minn.: Thomson-West, 2003.

Provides detailed, informed advice on the application of regulatory devices on adult businesses, primarily focusing on obscenity, zoning, licensing, and nuisance control. Explains which forms of speech are not entitled to constitutional protection, and why zoning ordinances are currently the most popular form of regulating adult entertainment. Discusses recent United States Supreme Court rulings, and how zoning ordinances have survived constitutional challenges in the courts.

Mitchell, Don. The Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space. New York: Guilford Press, 2003.

Blending historical and geographical analysis, this book examines the vital relationship between struggles over public space and movements for social justice in the United States. Presented are a series of linked cases that explore the judicial response to public demonstrations by early twentieth-century workers, and comparable legal issues surrounding anti-abortion protests today; the Free Speech Movement and the history of People's Park in Berkeley; and the plight of homeless people facing new laws against their presence in urban streets. The central focus is how political dissent gains meaning and momentum--and is regulated and policed--in the real, physical spaces of the city. Reviewed in the October 2003 issue of Planning magazine.

Regional Planning

Orfield, Myron. Activist's Guide to Metropolitics: Building Coalitions for Reform in America's Metropolitan Areas. Minneapolis: Metropolitan Area Research Corporation.

An Activist's Guide to Metropolitics offers a set of strategies to help you reach your goals. The booklet is broken up into two sections. The first offers answers to commonly asked questions in three important areas of regional reform: fiscal equity, land use and regional governance. The second part of the guide highlights organizations across the country that has tackled the tricky business of regional reform. We show how a coalition of churches led Minnesota to pass landmark legislation to revive brownfields. We showcase an environmental group in Wisconsin that pushed state lawmakers to pass a smart growth law. We highlight a Cincinnati group's ongoing efforts to push that metropolitan area toward better land use and regional governance. We study how a Chicago business group is changing land-use patterns in the nation's third largest metropolitan area. We learn how a Columbus planning organization built a fruitful relationship with local media.

Steinitz, Carl, et al. Alternative Futures for Changing Landscapes: the Upper San Pedro River Basin in Arizona and Sonora. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2003.

A detailed case study of one alternative futures project — an analysis of development and conservation options for the Upper San Pedro River Basin in Arizona and Sonora, Mexico. The area is internationally recognized for its high levels of biodiversity, and like many regions, it is facing increased pressures from nearby population centers, agriculture, and mining interests. Local officials and others planning for the future of the region are seeking to balance the needs of the natural environment with those of local human communities. The book describes how the research team, working with local stakeholders, developed a set of scenarios that encompassed public opinion on the major issues facing the area. They then simulated an array of possible patterns of land uses and assessed the resultant impacts on biodiversity and related environmental factors including vegetation, hydrology, and visual preference. The book gives a comprehensive overview of how the study was conducted, along with descriptions and analysis of the alternative futures that resulted. It includes more than 30 charts and graphs and more than 150 color figures. Reviewed in the July 2003 issue of Planning magazine.