When Fracking Comes to Town: Governance, Planning, and Economic Impacts of the US Shale Boom

When Fracking Comes to Town traces the response of local communities to the shale gas revolution. Rather than cast communities as powerless to respond to oil and gas companies and their landmen, it shows that communities have adapted their local rules and regulations to meet the novel challenges accompanying unconventional gas extraction through fracking. The multidisciplinary perspectives of this volume's essays tie together insights from planners, legal scholars, political scientists, and economists. What emerges is a more nuanced perspective of shale gas development and its impacts on municipalities and residents.

Unlike many political debates that cast fracking in black-and-white terms, this book's contributors embrace the complexity of local responses to fracking. States adapted legal institutions to meet the new challenges posed by this energy extraction process while under-resourced municipal officials and local planning offices found creative ways to alleviate pressure on local infrastructure and reduce harmful effects of fracking on the environment. The essays in When Fracking Comes to Town tell a story of community resilience with the rise and decline of shale gas production.

Contributors: Ennio Piano, Ann M. Eisenberg, Pamela A. Mischen, Joseph T. Palka, Jr., Adelyn Hall, Carla Chifos, Teresa Córdova, Rebecca Matsco, Anna C. Osland, Carolyn G. Loh, Gavin Roberts, Sandeep Kumar Rangaraju, Frederick Tannery, Larry McCarthy, Erik R. Pages, Mark C. White, Martin Romitti, Nicholas G. McClure, Ion Simonides, Jeremy G. Weber, Max Harleman, Heidi Gorovitz Robertson

Sabina E. Deitrick is Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and Codirector of the Urban and Regional Analysis program, University Center for Social and Urban Research at the University of Pittsburgh. She is a coauthor of The Rise of the Gunbelt. Follow her on Twitter @deitrick.

Ilia Murtazashvili is Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and Associate Director of the Center for Governance and Markets at the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of The Political Economy of Fracking and several other books. Follow him on X @IMurtazashvili.