Model Subdivision Regulations
Model Subdivision Regulations

Author: Robert H. Freilich

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 1995-01-01

Total Pages: 447

ISBN-13: 1351177362

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A major revision of a classic planning text. This book contains a complete model subdivision ordinance for city and county governments as well as more than 100 pages of legal commentary. The model regulations are generally compatible with all state statutes and work in urban, suburban, and rural settings. They show how communities can finance capital facilities, balance new development with existing surroundings, avoid exposure to the legal pitfalls of takings and substantive due process claims, and much more. Two new chapters cover public facilities impact fees and land readjustment. The chapter on impact fees includes a section on regulatory takings law that looks at how prominent U.S. Supreme Court cases have affected property rights, development, and regulation. Each section of the model regulations is followed by insightful commentary that supports, annotates, and documents the text. The authors explore the rationale for using various regulations, basing their arguments on existing statutory authority, case law, and federal constitutional requirements. The commentary identifies and explains changes from the original model regulations. Whether you're drafting new regulations or considering amendments to existing ones, you'll find Model Subdivision Regulations to be an invaluable reference.

Arbitrary Lines
Arbitrary Lines

Author: M. Nolan Gray

Publisher: Island Press

Published: 2022-06-21

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 1642832553

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What if scrapping one flawed policy could bring US cities closer to addressing debilitating housing shortages, stunted growth and innovation, persistent racial and economic segregation, and car-dependent development? It’s time for America to move beyond zoning, argues city planner M. Nolan Gray in Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It. With lively explanations and stories, Gray shows why zoning abolition is a necessary—if not sufficient—condition for building more affordable, vibrant, equitable, and sustainable cities. The arbitrary lines of zoning maps across the country have come to dictate where Americans may live and work, forcing cities into a pattern of growth that is segregated and sprawling. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way. Reform is in the air, with cities and states across the country critically reevaluating zoning. In cities as diverse as Minneapolis, Fayetteville, and Hartford, the key pillars of zoning are under fire, with apartment bans being scrapped, minimum lot sizes dropping, and off-street parking requirements disappearing altogether. Some American cities—including Houston, America’s fourth-largest city—already make land-use planning work without zoning. In Arbitrary Lines, Gray lays the groundwork for this ambitious cause by clearing up common confusions and myths about how American cities regulate growth and examining the major contemporary critiques of zoning. Gray sets out some of the efforts currently underway to reform zoning and charts how land-use regulation might work in the post-zoning American city. Despite mounting interest, no single book has pulled these threads together for a popular audience. In Arbitrary Lines, Gray fills this gap by showing how zoning has failed to address even our most basic concerns about urban growth over the past century, and how we can think about a new way of planning a more affordable, prosperous, equitable, and sustainable American city.

City Rules
City Rules

Author: Emily Talen

Publisher: Island Press

Published: 2012-06-22

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 1610911768

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City Rules offers a challenge to students and professionals in urban planning, design, and policy to change the rules of city-building, using regulations to reinvigorate, rather than stifle, our communities. Emily Talen demonstrates that regulations are a primary detriment to the creation of a desirable urban form. While many contemporary codes encourage sprawl and even urban blight, that hasn't always been the case-and it shouldn't be in the future. Talen provides a visually rich history, showing how certain eras used rules to produce beautiful, walkable, and sustainable communities, while others created just the opposite. She makes complex regulations understandable, demystifying city rules like zoning and illustrating how written codes translate into real-world consequences. Most importantly, Talen proposes changes to these rules that will actually enhance communities' freedom to develop unique spaces.

Strong Towns
Strong Towns

Author: Charles L. Marohn, Jr.

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2019-10-01

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 1119564816

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A new way forward for sustainable quality of life in cities of all sizes Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Build American Prosperity is a book of forward-thinking ideas that breaks with modern wisdom to present a new vision of urban development in the United States. Presenting the foundational ideas of the Strong Towns movement he co-founded, Charles Marohn explains why cities of all sizes continue to struggle to meet their basic needs, and reveals the new paradigm that can solve this longstanding problem. Inside, you’ll learn why inducing growth and development has been the conventional response to urban financial struggles—and why it just doesn’t work. New development and high-risk investing don’t generate enough wealth to support itself, and cities continue to struggle. Read this book to find out how cities large and small can focus on bottom-up investments to minimize risk and maximize their ability to strengthen the community financially and improve citizens’ quality of life. Develop in-depth knowledge of the underlying logic behind the “traditional” search for never-ending urban growth Learn practical solutions for ameliorating financial struggles through low-risk investment and a grassroots focus Gain insights and tools that can stop the vicious cycle of budget shortfalls and unexpected downturns Become a part of the Strong Towns revolution by shifting the focus away from top-down growth toward rebuilding American prosperity Strong Towns acknowledges that there is a problem with the American approach to growth and shows community leaders a new way forward. The Strong Towns response is a revolution in how we assemble the places we live.

The Jepson Manual
The Jepson Manual

Author: James C. Hickman

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 1450

ISBN-13: 9780520082557

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"More information is packed into one volume that will be useful to a wider audience than any other manual of this kind yet published in the history of botany."--David L. Magney, The California Native Plant Society "A single work . . . simultaneously accessible to dedicated beginners and indispensable to professional botanists. . . . For the first time in one volume a user-friendly flora of the exceedingly diverse higher plants of California."--Mildred E. Mathias, editor of Flowering Plants in the Landscape "Allows amateurs and professionals alike to easily and accurately identify plant species. . . . A product that will contribute in a major way to the preservation of California's unique floral resource. Our gratitude and congratulations for a job well done."--Phyllis Faber, Editor, Fremontia "Sets new standards for excellence . . . and picks up beautifully on the contemporary idea that botanical work should be fully accessible to the general public as well as to scientists."--Peter H. Raven, Missouri Botanical Garden "Precise and accurate, a masterpiece of clarity and succinctness."--G. Ledyard Stebbins, University of California, Davis