Law Commons^™

Are The Suburbs Unconstitutional?, J. Peter Byrne

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

It is hard not to conclude that American local land use law has been a persistent and squalid failure. Once proud cities now stagger--decayed, honeycombed with dangerous, surreal moonscapes of physical and human devastation, and surrounded by insipid suburbs that sprawl over a vanishing rural world. What has gone wrong? To some extent, localities have had to bear the consequences of persistent racism and the national failure to embrace social democracy and adopt decent minimum guarantees of health care, education, and housing. Still, local land use law is deeply complicit with these national political choices.