Land Use and the States (RFF Press)

The author focuses on three of the most significant state California's Coastal Zone Conservation Act (1972), Vermont's Act 250 (1970), and Florida's Environmental Land and Water Management Act (1972). These case studies afford a rare insight into how each state has defined and evaluated its land use priorities and formulated a legal solution to its particular crisis. He then discusses the alternative programs that various states have adopted, enumerates some of the political, social, and economic issues their implementation raises, and proposes a program of coordinated state and local controls to help ease the public's discontent with how the land has been managed. In essence, this volume provides a comprehensive, comparative look at the role of the states in controlling privately owned land. Academic specialists, planners and attorneys in the land use field, state, local, and regional officials, students of urban planning, and citizens concerned with the use and abuse of land will find this volume invaluable.