Zoning and the American Dream PDF Download

Author: Charles Haar
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9780367330088
Category : Zoning law
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
First Published in 1990. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company. This guide explains neighborhood planning for both citizens and professionals. It explains what information to collect, where to get it, and how to assess it; how to pinpoint key issues, set clear goals, and devise strategies to achieve them; and how to pa

Author: Sonia A. Hirt
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801454700
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
Why are American cities, suburbs, and towns so distinct? Compared to European cities, those in the United States are characterized by lower densities and greater distances; neat, geometric layouts; an abundance of green space; a greater level of social segregation reflected in space; and—perhaps most noticeably—a greater share of individual, single-family detached housing. In Zoned in the USA, Sonia A. Hirt argues that zoning laws are among the important but understudied reasons for the cross-continental differences.Hirt shows that rather than being imported from Europe, U.S. municipal zoning law was in fact an institution that quickly developed its own, distinctly American profile. A distinct spatial culture of individualism—founded on an ideal of separate, single-family residences apart from the dirt and turmoil of industrial and agricultural production—has driven much of municipal regulation, defined land-use, and, ultimately, shaped American life. Hirt explores municipal zoning from a comparative and international perspective, drawing on archival resources and contemporary land-use laws from England, Germany, France, Australia, Russia, Canada, and Japan to challenge assumptions about American cities and the laws that guide them.

Author: Charles Monroe Haar
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
This thoughtful book assesses just how well zoning is meeting its goals six decades after it was introduced. Zoning and the American Dream finds grounds for both optimism and pessimism. Though susceptible to gross misuse, Haar and Kayden argue that zoning is still the most powerful tool available for shaping the environment in which we live and work. The book starts before the Supreme Court's 1926 landmark decision in Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Company with a look at the battles that prompted litigation. It's a story of strong-willed individuals, surprising political coalitions, and debate on some of the major philosophical issues of the Progressive era. This great drama is recounted with flair and detail. The dusty files of Ambler Realty Company's lawyers are exhumed to reveal the thinking behind the case. We're given a lively first hand perspective of the unfolding trail strategy. There's also a look at the personal backgrounds of major and minor players and an appendix with the complete text of the decision. The book also explores the problematic sides of zoning for example, its use for racial and class discrimination. One chapter uncovers how some communities have even used zoning not only to exclude blacks but to destroy existing viable black neighborhoods by zoning for intrusive commercial and industrial uses. The book casts a skeptical eye on increased judicial intervention in zoning as constitutional battles have involved judges more and more in the planning of American communities. It also examines the pervasive impact of zoning on design and questions the compatibility of zoning and traditional economic theory. Zoning and the American Dream is the first book that looks at zoning from every imaginable perspective: historical, physical design and planning, sociological, legal, economic, and political. It's a useful reference for professionals. And just a good read for anyone interested in the nature of American communities.

Author: Peter Calthorpe
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
ISBN: 9781878271686
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
Regarding issues of urban sprawl Visit Sprawl Net, at Rice University. It's under construction, but it should be an interesting resource. Check out the traffic in the land of commuting. And, finally, enjoy Los Angeles: Revisiting the Four Ecologies.

Author: Richard V. Reeves
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815735499
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Book Description
Dream Hoarders sparked a national conversation on the dangerous separation between the upper middle class and everyone else. Now in paperback and newly updated for the age of Trump, Brookings Institution senior fellow Richard Reeves is continuing to challenge the class system in America. In America, everyone knows that the top 1 percent are the villains. The rest of us, the 99 percent—we are the good guys. Not so, argues Reeves. The real class divide is not between the upper class and the upper middle class: it is between the upper middle class and everyone else. The separation of the upper middle class from everyone else is both economic and social, and the practice of “opportunity hoarding”—gaining exclusive access to scarce resources—is especially prevalent among parents who want to perpetuate privilege to the benefit of their children. While many families believe this is just good parenting, it is actually hurting others by reducing their chances of securing these opportunities. There is a glass floor created for each affluent child helped by his or her wealthy, stable family. That glass floor is a glass ceiling for another child. Throughout Dream Hoarders, Reeves explores the creation and perpetuation of opportunity hoarding, and what should be done to stop it, including controversial solutions such as ending legacy admissions to school. He offers specific steps toward reducing inequality and asks the upper middle class to pay for it. Convinced of their merit, members of the upper middle class believes they are entitled to those tax breaks and hoarded opportunities. After all, they aren't the 1 percent. The national obsession with the super rich allows the upper middle class to convince themselves that they are just like the rest of America. In Dream Hoarders, Reeves argues that in many ways, they are worse, and that changes in policy and social conscience are the only way to fix the broken system.

Author: Andres Duany
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780865476066
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk are at the forefront of the New Urbanism movement, and in "Suburban Nation" they assess sprawl's costs to society, be they ecological, economic, aesthetic, or social. 115 illustrations.

Author: Diana Lind
Publisher: Bold Type Books
ISBN: 1541742648
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
This smart, provocative look at how the American Dream of single-family homes, white picket fences, and two-car garages became a lonely, overpriced nightmare explores how new trends in housing can help us live better. Over the past century, American demographics and social norms have shifted dramatically. More people are living alone, marrying later in life, and having smaller families. At the same time, their lifestyles are changing, whether by choice or by force, to become more virtual, more mobile, and less stable. But despite the ways that today's America is different and more diverse, housing still looks stuck in the 1950s. In Brave New Home, Diana Lind shows why a country full of single-family houses is bad for us and our planet, and details the new efforts underway that better reflect the way we live now, to ensure that the way we live next is both less lonely and more affordable. Lind takes readers into the homes and communities that are seeking alternatives to the American norm, from multi-generational living, in-law suites, and co-living to microapartments, tiny houses, and new rural communities. Drawing on Lind's expertise and the stories of Americans caught in or forging their own paths outside of our cookie-cutter housing trap, Brave New Home offers a diagnosis of the current American housing crisis and a radical re-imagining of future possibilities.

Author: Christopher B. Leinberger
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1597267767
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
Americans are voting with their feet to abandon strip malls and suburban sprawl, embracing instead a new type of community where they can live, work, shop, and play within easy walking distance. In The Option of Urbanism visionary developer and strategist Christopher B. Leinberger explains why government policies have tilted the playing field toward one form of development over the last sixty years: the drivable suburb. Rooted in the driving forces of the economy—car manufacturing and the oil industry—this type of growth has fostered the decline of community, contributed to urban decay, increased greenhouse gas emissions, and contributed to the rise in obesity and asthma. Highlighting both the challenges and the opportunities for this type of development, The Option of Urbanism shows how the American Dream is shifting to include cities as well as suburbs and how the financial and real estate communities need to respond to build communities that are more environmentally, socially, and financially sustainable.

Author: Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469653672
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2019 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST, 2020 PULITZER PRIZE IN HISTORY By the late 1960s and early 1970s, reeling from a wave of urban uprisings, politicians finally worked to end the practice of redlining. Reasoning that the turbulence could be calmed by turning Black city-dwellers into homeowners, they passed the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968, and set about establishing policies to induce mortgage lenders and the real estate industry to treat Black homebuyers equally. The disaster that ensued revealed that racist exclusion had not been eradicated, but rather transmuted into a new phenomenon of predatory inclusion. Race for Profit uncovers how exploitative real estate practices continued well after housing discrimination was banned. The same racist structures and individuals remained intact after redlining's end, and close relationships between regulators and the industry created incentives to ignore improprieties. Meanwhile, new policies meant to encourage low-income homeownership created new methods to exploit Black homeowners. The federal government guaranteed urban mortgages in an attempt to overcome resistance to lending to Black buyers – as if unprofitability, rather than racism, was the cause of housing segregation. Bankers, investors, and real estate agents took advantage of the perverse incentives, targeting the Black women most likely to fail to keep up their home payments and slip into foreclosure, multiplying their profits. As a result, by the end of the 1970s, the nation's first programs to encourage Black homeownership ended with tens of thousands of foreclosures in Black communities across the country. The push to uplift Black homeownership had descended into a goldmine for realtors and mortgage lenders, and a ready-made cudgel for the champions of deregulation to wield against government intervention of any kind. Narrating the story of a sea-change in housing policy and its dire impact on African Americans, Race for Profit reveals how the urban core was transformed into a new frontier of cynical extraction.

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 130

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Book Description
"Every socially responsible architect should peruse (this book), and (it) should be made compulsory reading for every, public housing official and developer" -- Michael Webb, L.A. Architect