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Full-Text Articles in Law
What Would Coase Do? (About Parking Regulation), Michael Lewyn
What Would Coase Do? (About Parking Regulation), Michael Lewyn
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Like many government regulations, municipal minimum parking requirements exist to prevent externalities - most notably the congestion, pollution and greenhouse gas emissions that occur when motorists drive around a city searching for scarce parking. But because such regulations make parking (and thus driving) cheaper, such regulations may in fact increase congestion and pollution, thus creating, rather than reducing, externalities.
Why Pedestrian-Friendly Street Design Is Not Negligent, Michael Lewyn
Why Pedestrian-Friendly Street Design Is Not Negligent, Michael Lewyn
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In recent decades, American state and local highway officials have built wide streets and roads designed primarily to accommodate high-speed automobile traffic. However, such high-speed streets are more dangerous for pedestrians and bicyclists than streets with slower traffic, and thus fail to adequately accommodate nondrivers. Government officials design streets for high-speed traffic partially because of their fear of tort liability. An influential street engineering manual, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials' Green Book, has generally favored the construction of such high-speed streets, and transportation planners fear that if they fail to follow the Green Book's recommendations, they …
Planners Gone Wild: The Overregulation Of Parking, Michael Lewyn
Planners Gone Wild: The Overregulation Of Parking, Michael Lewyn
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No abstract provided.
Five Myths About Sprawl, Michael Lewyn
Five Myths About Sprawl, Michael Lewyn
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In Sprawl: A Compact History, Robert Bruegmann, an art historian, has painted a superficially convincing case for the status quo, asserting that sprawl is "a natural result of affluence that occurs in all urbanized societies." Bruegmann's book has generated glowing media publicity. This article suggests that Bruegmann overestimates the universality of sprawl, by overlooking the differences between pedestrian-friendly cities with some sprawling development and cities in which automobile-dependent sprawl is the only choice available to most consumers. In addition, Bruegmann understates the harmful social effects of sprawl, especially the effect of automobile-dependent development upon non-drivers. Bruegmann also consistently underestimates the …
How Government Regulation Forces Americans Into Their Cars: A Case Study, Michael Lewyn
How Government Regulation Forces Americans Into Their Cars: A Case Study, Michael Lewyn
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No abstract provided.
You Can Have It All: Less Sprawl And Property Rights Too, Michael Lewyn
You Can Have It All: Less Sprawl And Property Rights Too, Michael Lewyn
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Some commentators believe that smart growth and property rights are at loggerheads - and to be sure, these theories do lead to differing positions on a few issues (most notably urban growth boundaries and similar anti-sprawl regulations). But as to a wide variety of issues, smart growth advocates and property rights theorists can find common ground. Both groups can support eliminating zoning regulations that mandate automobile-dependent, sprawling development, such as single-use zoning, minimum parking requirements and minimum lot size requirements.
New Urbanist Zoning For Dummies, Michael Lewyn
The Law Of Sprawl: A Road Map, Michael Lewyn
How Overregulation Creates Sprawl (Even In A City Without Zoning), Michael Lewyn
How Overregulation Creates Sprawl (Even In A City Without Zoning), Michael Lewyn
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Numerous commentators have suggested that the spread-out, automobile-dependent urban form (often referred to as "sprawl") that dominates metropolitan America is at least partially caused by government regulation of land use. Other commentators argue that the fate of Houston, Texas may seem to rebut that theory. Houston is America's only large city without a formal zoning code. Yet Houston is as automobile-dependent and sprawling as many cities with zoning. It could therefore be argued that automobile-dependent sprawl is the inevitable result of the free market, based on the following chain of logic: Assumption 1: Because Houston lacks zoning, Houston has an …
Suburban Sprawl, Jewish Law, And Jewish Values, Michael Lewyn
Suburban Sprawl, Jewish Law, And Jewish Values, Michael Lewyn
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In the second half of the twentieth century, America's cities and suburbs were engulfed by suburban sprawl - the movement of people (especially middle-class families) and jobs from older urban cores to newer, less densely populated, more automobile-dependent communities generally referred to as suburbs. Cities throughout America lost population to their outlying suburbs, and cities that gained population usually did so only because they were able to annex those suburbs. America's suburban revolution has not left Jewish communities unscathed. For example, the city of Newark, New Jersey, contained 58,000 Jews and thirty-four synagogues in the 1940s, but today has only …
How City Hall Causes Sprawl - A Case Study (Book Review), Michael Lewyn
How City Hall Causes Sprawl - A Case Study (Book Review), Michael Lewyn
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Some commentators have labeled Atlanta, Ga. as America's poster child for sprawl. Atlanta is highly auto-oriented, and suffers from higher levels of traffic congestion and air pollution than most other cities. This book review explains how sprawl happened in Atlanta - not through the mysterious invisible hand of the free market, but through transportation and zoning decisions made by city officials.
Campaign Of Sabotage: Big Government's War Against Public Transportation, Michael Lewyn
Campaign Of Sabotage: Big Government's War Against Public Transportation, Michael Lewyn
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Historically, American politicians have been far more generous to highways than to public transit. The political elite's failure to support public transit is based on the view that despite decades of state and federal support, transit ridership has dwindled. This article criticizes that theory, by explaining that far from promoting public transit, government at all levels has sabotaged transit in a variety of ways: by building highways to suburbs unserved by public transit, by loading down transit systems with unfunded mandates, by using housing, education and tax policy to encourage migration to those suburbs, and by using zoning policy to …
Thou Shalt Not Put A Stumbling Block Before The Blind": The Americans With Disabilities Act And Public Transit For The Disabled, Michael Lewyn
Thou Shalt Not Put A Stumbling Block Before The Blind": The Americans With Disabilities Act And Public Transit For The Disabled, Michael Lewyn
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The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), ordered local governments to make bus and train systems more accessible to the disabled, and imposed costly requirements upon local public transit systems - but did not give local governments funds with which to satisfy this mandate. By reducing the funds available to transit systems, the ADA has sometimes forced cutbacks in transit service for everyone including, ironically, the disabled to the extent that disabled people were able to use public transit before the ADA's enactment). Thus, the ADA has occasionally (at least in times of budgetary austerity) been counterproductive. The ADA's inadequacy is …