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The Takings Issue
Constitutional Limits On Land Use Control And Environmental Regulation
Robert Meltz, Dwight H. Merriam, and Richard M. Frank; Foreword by Fred Bosselman David Callies John Banta
Island Press, 1999
As challenges to land use and environmental controls by landowners and the property-rights movement have become more frequent, the concept of "takings" -- government action that excessively limits a property-owner's use of private land -- has become both increasingly familiar to the public, and increasingly problematic for planners, local officials, and anyone involved with making day-to-day decisions about land use. A vast and diverse body of case law has come into existence over the past several decades, and the controversy generated by recent legal decisions has resulted in a significant level of ideological bias in much of what has been written on the topic.This volume is an objective and authoritative examination that considers all aspects of the takings issue. It is a much-needed guide and overview that introduces and explains issues surrounding regulatory takings on the local, state, and federal level for anyone involved with private land and government limitation of its permissible use. The authors describe where the law is now, predict where it might go in the future, and review conflict-reducing solutions to a variety of situations. They condense an immense amount of information into a clear and accesible format, making the book equally valuable for lawyers and non-lawyers alike.The Takings Issue addresses procedural hurdles involved in getting a takings issue heard by a court, examines what does and does not constitute a taking, and considers the remedies available to landowners involved in takings actions. It treats concerns such as zoning, dedications and exactions, subdivision platting, and other local issues in some detail, and also considers state and federal issues involving industrial site approval, endangered species and wetlands protection, restrictions on access to resources on federal lands, and other topics.The book is an essential reference for planners, land use lawyers, developers, and students of planning and law, as well as for policymakers and citizens involved with takings issues.
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The TDR Handbook
Designing and Implementing Transfer of Development Rights Programs
Arthur C. Nelson, Rick Pruetz, and Doug Woodruff with James C. Nicholas, JulianConrad Juergensmeyer, and Jonathan Witten
Island Press, 2011
"Transfer of Development Rights" (TDR) programs allow local governments to put economic principles to work in encouraging good land use planning. TDR programs most often permit landowners to forfeit development rights in areas targeted for preservation and then sell those development rights to buyers who want to increase the density of development in areas designated as growth areas by local authorities.
 
Although TDR programs must conform to zoning laws, they provide market incentives that make them more equitable (and often more lucrative) for sellers and frequently benefit buyers by allowing them to receive prior approval for their high-density development plans. Since the 1970s when modern TDR applications were first conceived, more than 200 communities in 33 states across the U.S. have implemented TDR-based programs. The most common uses of TDR to date involve protecting farmland, environmentally sensitive land, historic sites, and "rural character," and urban revitalization.
 
Until now, however, there has never been a clearly written, one-volume book on the subject. At last, The TDR Handbook provides a comprehensive guide to every aspect of TDR programs, from the thinking behind them to the nuts and bolts of implementation-including statutory guidance, model ordinances, suggestions for program administration, and comparisons with other types of preservation programs. In addition, six of its twenty chapters are devoted to case studies of all major uses to which TDR programs have been utilized to date, including recent urban revitalization projects that utilize TDR principles.
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Texas Wildlife Resources and Land Uses
Edited by Raymond C. Telfair II
University of Texas Press, 1998

Natural habitats for wildlife in Texas and the many species they support are dwindling at an alarming rate as an ever-growing population continues to develop the land for commercial, industrial, and agricultural uses. To take stock of our current wildlife and land resources, identify challenges facing them, and offer strategies for future management and conservation, this book presents over twenty-five essays by experts from a wide range of governmental and private organizations involved in wildlife policy and management.

Modeled on the proceedings of a 1982 wildlife symposium published by the Texas Chapter of The Wildlife Society, this book updates and expands the issues involved in wildlife and land use. The chapters are grouped into five sections-perspectives on Texas wildlife resources, future expectations in land use, the public and future demands for wildlife, wildlife management and research, and wildlife management on public lands. The diverse and sometimes competing viewpoints presented here will be important reading for everyone concerned with managing land for wildlife.

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This Ecstatic Nation
The American Landscape and the Aesthetics of Patriotism
Terre Ryan
University of Massachusetts Press, 2011
Americans' cultural love affair with their country's landscape started in the nineteenth century, when expansionism was often promoted as divine mission, the West was still the frontier, and scenery became the backdrop of nationalist mythology. With a promise of resources ripe for development, Manifest Destiny–era aesthetics often reinforced a system of environmental degradation while preserving the wide and wild view. Although the aesthetics have evolved, contemporary media are filled with American landscape images inspired by the nineteenth century.

Terre Ryan examines this phenomenon by exploring the overlapping trails of national mythology, landscape aesthetics, patriotic discourse, and public policy. Tracing her journeys around bombing grounds in Nevada, logging sites in Oregon, and energy fields in Wyoming, she argues that business and government agencies often frame commercial projects and national myths according to nineteenth-century beliefs about landscape and bounty. Advertisements and political promotional materials following this aesthetic framework perpetuate frontier-era ideas about the environment as commodity, scenery, and cultural trashlands. Transmitted through all types of media, nineteenth-century perspectives on landscape continue to inform mainstream perceptions of the environment, environmental policies, and representations of American patriotism.

Combining personal narrative with factual reportage, political and cultural critique, and historical analysis, Ryan reframes the images we see every day and places them into a larger national narrative.
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A Thousand Pieces of Paradise
Landscape and Property in the Kickapoo Valley
Lynne Heasley
University of Wisconsin Press, 2012
A Thousand Pieces of Paradise is an ecological history of property and a cultural history of rural ecosystems set in one of Wisconsin's most famous regions, the Kickapoo Valley. While examining the national war on soil erosion in the 1930s, a controversial real estate development scheme, Amish land settlement, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dam project, and Native American efforts to assert longstanding land claims, Lynne Heasley traces the historical development of modern American property debates within ever-more diverse rural landscapes and cultures. Heasley argues that the way public discourse has framed environmental debates hides the full shape our system of property has taken in rural communities and landscapes. She shows how democratic and fluid visions of property-based on community relationships-have coexisted alongside individualistic visions of property rights. In this environmental biography of a landscape and its people lie powerful lessons for rural communities seeking to understand and reconcile competing values about land and their place in it.
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front cover of To Heal the Earth
To Heal the Earth
Selected Writings of Ian L. McHarg
Ian L. McHarg; Edited by Frederick R. Steiner; Foreword by Robert D. Yaro
Island Press, 2007

Ian L. McHarg's landmark book Design with Nature changed the face of landscape architecture and planning by promoting the idea that the design of human settlements should be based on ecological principles. McHarg was one of the earliest and most influential proponents of the notion that an understanding of the processes that form landscapes should underlie design decisions.

In To Heal the Earth, McHarg has joined with Frederick Steiner, a noted scholar of landscape architecture and planning, to bring forth a valuable cache of his writings produced between the 1950s and the 1990s. McHarg and Steiner have each provided original material that links the writings together, and places them within the historical context of planning design work and within the larger field of ecological planning as practiced today.

The book moves from the theoretical-beginning with the 1962 essay "Man and Environment" which sets forth the themes of religion, science, and creativity that emerge and reappear throughout McHarg's work--to the practical, including discussions of methods and techniques for ecological planning as well as case studies. Other sections address the link between ecology and design, and the issue of ecological planning at a regional scale, covering topics such as education and training necessary to develop the field of ecological planning, how to organize and arrange biophysical information to reveal landscape patterns, the importance of incorporating social factors into ecological planning, and more.

To Heal the Earth provides a larger framework and a new perspective on McHarg's work that brings to light the growth and development of his key ideas over a forty year period. It is an important contribution to the literature, and will be essential reading for students and scholars of ecological planning, as well as for professional planners and landscape architects.

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The Transit Metropolis
A Global Inquiry
Robert Cervero
Island Press, 1998
Around the world, mass transit is struggling to compete with the private automobile, and in many places, its market share is rapidly eroding. Yet a number of metropolitan areas have in recent decades managed to mount cost-effective and resource-conserving transit services that provide respectable alternatives to car travel. What sets these places apart?
 
In this book, noted transportation expert Robert Cervero provides an on-the-ground look at more than a dozen mass transit success stories, introducing the concept of the "transit metropolis"—a region where a workable fit exists between transit services and urban form. The author has spent more than three years studying cities around the world, and he makes a compelling case that metropolitan areas of any size and with any growth pattern—from highly compact to widely dispersed—can develop successful mass transit systems.
 
Following an introductory chapter that frames his argument and outlines the main issues, Cervero describes and examines five different types of transit metropolises, with twelve in-depth case studies of cities that represent each type. He considers the key lessons of the case studies and debunks widely held myths about transit and the city. In addition, he reviews the efforts underway in five North American cities to mount transit programs and discusses the factors working for and against their success. Cities profiled include Stockholm; Singapore; Tokyo; Ottawa; Zurich; Melbourne; Mexico City; Curitiba, Brazil; Portland, Oregon; and Vancouver, British Columbia.
 
The Transit Metropolis provides practical lessons on how North American cities can manage sprawl and haphazard highway development by creating successful mass transit systems. While many books discuss the need for a sustainable transportation system, few are able to present examples of successful systems and provide the methods and tools needed to create such a system. This book is a unique and invaluable resource for transportation planners and professionals, urban planners and designers, policymakers and students of planning and urban design.
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Turning the Tide
Saving the Chesapeake Bay
Tom Horton; Chesapeake Bay Foundation
Island Press, 2003
In 1991, Island Press published Turning the Tide, a unique and accessible examination of the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem. The book took an indepth look at the Bay’s vital signs to gauge the overall health of its entire ecosystem and to assess what had been done and what remained to be done to clean up the Bay.
 
This new edition of Turning the Tide addresses new developments of the past decade and examines the factors that will have the most significant effects on the health of the Bay in the coming years.With new case studies and updated maps, charts, and graphs, the book builds on the analytical power of ten years of experience to offer a new perspective, along with clear, science-based recommendations for the future.
 
For all those who want to know not only how much must be done to save the Bay but what they can do and how they can make a difference, Turning the Tide is an essential source of information.
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