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Full-Text Articles in Law

School Choice, The First Amendment, And Social Justice, Nicole Stelle Garnett, Richard W. Garnett Nov 2013

School Choice, The First Amendment, And Social Justice, Nicole Stelle Garnett, Richard W. Garnett

Nicole Stelle Garnett

No abstract provided.


Trouble Preserving Paradise?, Nicole Stelle Garnett Nov 2013

Trouble Preserving Paradise?, Nicole Stelle Garnett

Nicole Stelle Garnett

Election day 2000 was not a good day for proponents of suburban growth controls. The overwhelming initial support for initiatives that proposed state-wide growth management plans in Colorado and Arizona withered in the face of vigorous opposition campaigns. And, pro-planning forces in Oregon woke up on Wednesday morning to learn that voters had approved a little-noticed initiative amending the state constitution to require compensation for partial takings - that is, for any reduction in the fair market value of property resulting from government regulation - thus throwing into question the future of the State's widely touted model controlled-growth scheme. These …


Managing The Urban Commons, Nicole Stelle Garnett Nov 2013

Managing The Urban Commons, Nicole Stelle Garnett

Nicole Stelle Garnett

No abstract provided.


A Winn For Educational Pluralism, Nicole Stelle Garnett Nov 2013

A Winn For Educational Pluralism, Nicole Stelle Garnett

Nicole Stelle Garnett

This short essay takes as its starting point on the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Winn v. Arizona Christian Tuition Organization, which involved an Establishment Clause challenge to Arizona’s scholarship tax program — a school-choice device that provides tax credits from state income taxes for donations to organizations granting scholarship to private K-12 schools. In Winn, a divided court ruled that taxpayers lack standing to challenge this and other tax credit programs — thereby dramatically limiting the Flast v. Cohen exception to the no-taxpayer-standing rule. The essay makes the case that the Winn will promote authentic educational pluralism by clearing …


Catholic Schools, Charter Schools, And Urban Neighborhoods, Margaret F. Brinig, Nicole Stelle Garnett Nov 2013

Catholic Schools, Charter Schools, And Urban Neighborhoods, Margaret F. Brinig, Nicole Stelle Garnett

Nicole Stelle Garnett

This paper addresses implications for urban neighborhoods of two dramatic shifts in the American educational landscape: (1) the rapid disappearance of Catholic schools from urban neighborhoods, and (2) the rise of charter schools. In previous studies, we linked Catholic school closures to increased disorder and crime, and decreased social cohesion, in Chicago neighborhoods. This paper turns to two questions unanswered in our previous investigations. First, because we focused exclusively on school closures in our previous studies, we were uncertain whether our results reflected the work that open Catholic schools do as neighborhood institutions or whether we were finding a “loss …


Unbundling Homeownership: Regional Reforms From The Inside Out, Nicole Stelle Garnett Nov 2013

Unbundling Homeownership: Regional Reforms From The Inside Out, Nicole Stelle Garnett

Nicole Stelle Garnett

Two vexing puzzles plague American land use regulators. The first puzzle is how to protect property owners from harmful spillovers without unduly stifling land use diversity. The dominant forms of land use regulation in the United States - zoning and private covenants - rely on ex ante prohibitions. Yet, since local governments and private developers rarely can calibrate the level of regulation to residents’ true preferences, the costs imposed by these regulations tend to exceed the benefits of actual harm prevention. The result is the over-protection of property owners and, and, many would argue, a monotonous, sterile, inefficient, and inconvenient …


Governing? Gentrifying? Seceding? Real-Time Answers To Questions About Business Improvement Districts, Nicole Stelle Garnett Nov 2013

Governing? Gentrifying? Seceding? Real-Time Answers To Questions About Business Improvement Districts, Nicole Stelle Garnett

Nicole Stelle Garnett

Business improvement districts (BIDs) have become a ubiquitous feature of the urban development toolkit. An important - perhaps the most important - instantiation of the trend in urban governance toward the devolution of local authority to new sublocal, quasi-governmental institutions, BIDs play an important role in urban re-development efforts, especially efforts to revitalize downtowns and satellite center-city business districts. Drawing upon case studies of Philadelphia’s BIDS, this symposium essay seeks to answer three questions about how BIDs actually work on the ground: First, whether BIDs are actually functioning as local governments rather than quasi-private providers of supplemental services; second, whether …


Property In-Laws, Nicole Stelle Garnett Nov 2013

Property In-Laws, Nicole Stelle Garnett

Nicole Stelle Garnett

No abstract provided.


Planning As Public Use?, Nicole Stelle Garnett Nov 2013

Planning As Public Use?, Nicole Stelle Garnett

Nicole Stelle Garnett

This short Essay explores the Supreme Court's suggestion in Kelo v. New London that public, participatory planning may be a constitutional safe harbor that separates impermissible private takings from presumptively valid public ones. After briefly reviewing the Court's discussion of the planning that preceded the Kelo litigation, the Essay examines how Kelo's emphasis on planning departs from standard rational basis review of economic policies and asks what such a departure means for future public-use litigants. The Essay then explores three possible practical benefits of a constitutional rule that encourages the government to engage in detailed planning before exercising the power …


The People Paradox, Nicole Stelle Garnett Nov 2013

The People Paradox, Nicole Stelle Garnett

Nicole Stelle Garnett

U.S. land-use regulators are increasingly embracing mixed-land-use “urban” neighborhoods, rather than single-land-use “suburban” ones, as a planning ideal. This shift away from traditional regulatory practice reflects a growing endorsement of Jane Jacobs’s influential argument that mixed-land-use urban neighborhoods are safer and more socially cohesive than single-land-use suburban ones. Proponents of regulatory reforms encouraging greater mixing of residential and commercial land uses, however, completely disregard a sizable empirical literature suggesting that commercial land use generates, rather than suppress, crime and disorder, and that suburban communities have higher levels of social capital than urban communities. This Article constructs a case for mixed-land-use …


A Room Of One's Own? Accessory Dwelling Unit Reforms And Local Parochialism, Margaret F. Brinig, Nicole Stelle Garnett Nov 2013

A Room Of One's Own? Accessory Dwelling Unit Reforms And Local Parochialism, Margaret F. Brinig, Nicole Stelle Garnett

Nicole Stelle Garnett

Over the past decade, a number of state and local governments have amended land use regulations to permit the accessory dwelling units (“ADUs”) on single-family lots. Measured by raw numbers of reforms, the campaign to secure legal reforms permitting ADUs appears to be a tremendous success. The question remains, however, whether these reforms overcome the well-documented land-use parochialism that has, for decades, represented a primary obstacle to increasing the supply of affordable housing. In order to understand more about their actual effects, this Article examines ADU reforms in a context which ought to predict a minimal level of local parochialism. …


Are Charters Enough Choice? School Choice And The Future Of Catholic Schools, Nicole Stelle Garnett Nov 2013

Are Charters Enough Choice? School Choice And The Future Of Catholic Schools, Nicole Stelle Garnett

Nicole Stelle Garnett

No abstract provided.


"But For The Grace Of God There Go I": Justice Thomas And The Little Guy, Nicole Stelle Garnett Nov 2013

"But For The Grace Of God There Go I": Justice Thomas And The Little Guy, Nicole Stelle Garnett

Nicole Stelle Garnett

This Essay, prepared for a NYU Journal of Law and Liberty symposium on “The Unknown Justice Thomas,” challenges the oft-repeated criticism that Justice Clarence Thomas’s opinions reflect a lack of empathy for the less fortunate. The Essay argues that, on the contrary, Justice Thomas’s opinions are replete with expressions of concern for the “little guy,” which are frequently overlooked or misinterpreted. The Essay explores three themes reflecting this concern in Thomas’s opinions.


Restoring Lost Connections: Land Use, Policing, And Urban Vitality, Nicole Stelle Garnett Nov 2013

Restoring Lost Connections: Land Use, Policing, And Urban Vitality, Nicole Stelle Garnett

Nicole Stelle Garnett

No abstract provided.


Affordable Private Education And The Middle Class City, Nicole Stelle Garnett Nov 2013

Affordable Private Education And The Middle Class City, Nicole Stelle Garnett

Nicole Stelle Garnett

This Essay, which was prepared for a University of Chicago Law School’s symposium on “Rethinking the Local Government Toolkit,” argues that affordable private schools serve an important urban-development function: They partially unbundle the residential and educational decisions of families with children. Thus, state and local officials hoping to make our make central city neighborhoods attractive places to raise children should consider employing a familiar urban development tool - tax incentives - to make quality private schools more financially accessible to middle-income families. The Essay proceeds in three parts. Part I builds the case for a middle class city. Part II …


On Castles And Commerce: Zoning Law And The Home Business Dilemma, Nicole Stelle Garnett Nov 2013

On Castles And Commerce: Zoning Law And The Home Business Dilemma, Nicole Stelle Garnett

Nicole Stelle Garnett

Most zoning laws severely restrict residents' ability to work from home. Some prohibit it outright. These regulations serve the ostensible purpose of protecting neighbors from externalities that might be generated by home businesses. But, home occupation restrictions also reflect in a particularly sharp way the central motivating ideology underlying all zoning laws - namely, that the good life requires the careful segregation of work and home. Today, home business regulations are being challenged by both planning theory and economic reality. At the same time that many in the academy and planning professions are calling into question zoning's pervasive segregation of …


Suburbs As Exit, Suburbs As Entrance, Nicole Stelle Garnett Nov 2013

Suburbs As Exit, Suburbs As Entrance, Nicole Stelle Garnett

Nicole Stelle Garnett

Most academics assume that suburbanites are exiters who have abandoned central cities. The exit story is a foundational one in the fields of land-use and local-government law: Exiters' historical, social, and economic connections with their center cities are frequently used to justify both growth controls and regional government. The exit story, however, no longer captures the American suburban experience. For a majority of Americans, suburbs have become points of entrance to, not of exit from, urban life. Most suburbanites are enterers - people who were born in, or migrated directly to, suburbs and who have not spent time living in …


The Road From Welfare To Work: Informal Transportation And The Urban Poor, Nicole Stelle Garnett Nov 2013

The Road From Welfare To Work: Informal Transportation And The Urban Poor, Nicole Stelle Garnett

Nicole Stelle Garnett

Individuals struggling to move from welfare to work face numerous obstacles. This Article addresses one of those obstacles: lack of transportation. Without reliable transportation, many welfare recipients are unable to find and maintain jobs located out of the reach of traditional forms of public transportation. Professor Garnett argues that lawmakers should remove restrictions on informal van or jitney services, allowing entrepreneurs to provide low-cost transportation to their communities. This reform would not only help people get to work, but it could also provide jobs for low-income people.


The Neglected Political Economy Of Eminent Domain, Nicole Stelle Garnett Nov 2013

The Neglected Political Economy Of Eminent Domain, Nicole Stelle Garnett

Nicole Stelle Garnett

This Article challenges a foundational assumption about eminent domain - namely, that owners are systematically undercompensated because they receive only fair market value for their property. The Article shows that, in fact, scholars have overstated the undercompensation problem because they have focused on the compensation required by the Constitution, rather than on the actual mechanics of eminent domain. The Article examines three ways that Takers (i.e., non-judicial actors in the eminent domain process) minimize undercompensation. First, Takers may avoid taking high-subjective-value properties. Second, Takers frequently must pay more compensation in the form of relocation assistance. Third, Takers and property owners …


Relocating Disorder, Nicole Stelle Garnett Nov 2013

Relocating Disorder, Nicole Stelle Garnett

Nicole Stelle Garnett

Judicial challenges to order-maintenance policing apparently are leading some city officials to adapt the tools of property regulation to a task traditionally reserved for the police - the control of disorderly people. Examples of efforts to regulate disorder, ex ante, through land-management strategies include homeless campuses that centralize housing and social services, neighborhood exclusion zone policies that empower local officials to exclude disorderly individuals from struggling communities, and the selective targeting of inner-city neighborhoods for aggressive property inspections. These tactics employ different management techniques - some concentrate disorder and others disperse it - but they have same goal: to relocate …


The Public-Use Question As A Takings Problem, Nicole Stelle Garnett Nov 2013

The Public-Use Question As A Takings Problem, Nicole Stelle Garnett

Nicole Stelle Garnett

Government officials regularly use the power of eminent domain to benefit private entities, and just as regularly justify their actions with post hoc assertions about the need to promote economic development. In Hawaii Housing Authority v. Midkiff, the Supreme Court reaffirmed that the Fifth Amendment demands broad deference to a government's decision to exercise the power of eminent domain. Midkiff makes clear that public use challenges are subject to rational basis review; so long as a taking can be justified by some conceivable public purpose, it will be upheld. Yet in recent years, a number of courts have put the …


"No Taking Without A Touching?" Questions From An Armchair Originalist, Nicole Stelle Garnett Nov 2013

"No Taking Without A Touching?" Questions From An Armchair Originalist, Nicole Stelle Garnett

Nicole Stelle Garnett

This paper is an invited contribution to the Bernard Siegan Memorial Conference on Economic Liberties, Property Rights, and the Original Meaning of the Constitution at the University of San Diego School of Law. The paper poses three questions about the historical evidence used to support the dominant academic view that the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause, as originally understood, extended only to physical appropriations or invasions of private property. First, the paper questions the relevance of state and local regulatory practices to the pre-incorporation understanding of the Takings Clause. Second, the paper expresses concern about the use of state-court cases decided …


The Order-Maintenance Agenda As Land Use Policy, Nicole Stelle Garnett Nov 2013

The Order-Maintenance Agenda As Land Use Policy, Nicole Stelle Garnett

Nicole Stelle Garnett

Debates about the broken windows hypothesis focus almost exclusively on whether the order-maintenance agenda represents wise criminal law policy — specifically on whether, when, and at what cost, order-maintenance policing techniques reduce serious crime. These questions are important, but incomplete. This Essay, which was solicited for a symposium on urban-development policy, considers potential benefits of order-maintenance policies other than crime-reduction, especially reducing the fear of crime. The Broken Windows essay itself urged that attention to disorder was important not just because disorder was a precursor to more serious crime, but also because disorder undermined residents’ sense of security. The later …


Ordering (And Order In) The City, Nicole Stelle Garnett Nov 2013

Ordering (And Order In) The City, Nicole Stelle Garnett

Nicole Stelle Garnett

Over the past two decades, the broken windows hypothesis by George Kelling and James Q. Wilson has revolutionized thinking about urban policy. This now-familiar theory is that uncorrected manifestations of disorder, even minor ones like broken windows, signal a breakdown in the social order that accelerates neighborhood decline. The response to this theory has been a proliferation of policies focusing on public order. Largely missing from the academic debate about these developments is a discussion of the complex and important role of property regulation in order-maintenance efforts. This Article attempts to fill that property law gap in the public-order puzzle …