Land Use Research Guide: Protection of Cultural and Aesthetic Values

Property and Valuesoffers a fresh look at property rights issues, bringing together scholars, attorneys, government officials, community development practitioners, and environmental advocates to consider new and more socially equitable forms of ownership. Based on a Harvard Law School conference organized by the Equity Trust, Inc., in cooperation with the American Bar Association's Commission on Homelessness and Poverty, the book: explains ownership as an evolving concept, determined by social processes and changing social relations challenges conventional public-private ownership categories surveys recent studies on the implications of public policy on property values offers examples from other cultures of ownership realities unfamiliar or forgotten in the United States compares experiments in ownership/equity allocation affecting social welfare and environmental conservation The book synthesizes much innovative thinking on ownership in land and housing, and signals how that thinking might be used across America. Contributors – including David Abromowitz, Darby Bradley, Teresa Duclos, Sally Fairfax, Margaret Grossman, C. Ford Runge, William Singer and others – call for balance between property rights and responsibilities, between private and public rights in property, and between individual and societal interests in land.Property and Valuesis a thought-provoking contribution to the literature on property for planners, lawyers, government officials, resource economists, environmental managers, and social scientists as well as for students of planning, environmental law, geography, or public policy.

This new edition of Norgren and Nanda's classic updates their examination of the intersection of American cultural pluralism and law. They document and analyze legal challenges to the existing social order raised by many cultural groups, among them, Native Americans and Native Hawaiians, homeless persons, immigrants, disabled persons, and Rastafarians. In addition, they examine such current controversies as the culture wars in American schools and the impact of post-9/11 security measures on Arab and Muslim individuals and communities. The book also discusses more traditional challenges to the American legal system by women, homosexuals, African Americans, Latinos, Japanese Americans, and the Mormons and the Amish.

Why do so many different people with widely dissimilar ideas and customs get along as Americans? In American Beliefs, John McElroy identifies and explains those essential ideas that promote the unity of a vast nation and a diversified people ”because they have been shared and acted upon by generations of Americans. Tracing these beliefs historically from their origins in the earliest experiences of the American colonists, Mr. McElroy shows how they became continuing convictions that together form a pattern distinct from those of other peoples. Work, he argues, shaped the primary beliefs of Americans, for the task of the early settlers was first of all to survive in a new wilderness. He then goes on to discuss beliefs that grew from the experiences of immigrants, from life on the frontier, and from the ideas that Americans developed about religion and morality, politics, human nature, and the workings of society. It is not birthplace or skin color that makes a person an American, Mr. McElroy observes, but a common behavior based upon principles of freedom and equality, individuality and responsibility, improvement and practicality. American Beliefs is a book greatly needed, a powerful antidote to decades of historical and political writings that have concentrated on the differences among Americans.

"Though aesthetic legislation is now common practice in most cities and jurisdictions, the architecture literature has failed to address the issues and problems in this area. This volume corrects this omission by offering guidelines on creating and administering a design review program." "Internationally recognized authorities on design review in architecture, urban planning, historic preservation, land use law, and urban policy discuss legal, procedural, and philosophical aspects of the subject, giving the reader a broad, multidisciplinary perspective. The book provides new ideas and practical advice on design review, with case studies from diverse historic, suburban, and urban communities. Inherent conflicts and inconsistencies in the concept of design control are also explored, enabling the reader to make design review decisions with confidence." "Covering the latest developments in the widespread practice of design review, this pioneering volume will benefit architects, urban planners and policymakers, land use attorneys, and historic preservation professionals who must create, apply, or participate in design regulation."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved