There are severe issues of public open space (POS) underinvestment and overexploitation. However, few studies have been conducted on the property rights structure and its impacts on rural commons governance, specifically concerning local neighbourhood residential POS quality and sustainability....

This article explores how deeply held philosophies and environmental risk allocation are "real" values in terms of enivronmental impacts, and as such should be considered under NEPA. If this were the case, this would make the operation of NEPA more transparent and efficient

Municipal zoning, shockingly, may be the most consequential regulatory program in the United States. The Article develops metrics for measuring the extent to which a locality's zoning practices are exclusionary, that is, limit the possible construction of least-cost housing. It applies the...

State preemption laws strictly limit local governments from regulating beyond their borders. Local governments, however, face a broad spectrum of challenges which cannot be confined to municipal borders. These challenges freely flow in and out of many local jurisdictions at the same time. The...

According to Albert O. Hirschman's famous dichotomy, citizens can express their preferences with their “voice” (by voting with ballots to elect better representatives) and “exit” (by voting with their feet to choose better places to live). Suppose, however, that ballot-voting is...

This study provides an empirical analysis of the effects of environmental zoning on urban development. It focuses on the case of Natural Regional Parks (NRPs) in France. Of the environmental zoning instruments used in France, NRPs extend over the widest physical area. The analysis uses a...

This paper looks at the optimal location of new forests in a suburban region under area constraints. The GIS-based methodology takes into account use benefits such as timber, hunting, carbon sequestration and recreation, non-use benefits (both bequest and existence values), opportunity costs of...

Cette étude présente une analyse empirique d’un certain nombre des effets secondaires qui peuvent être associés à ces instruments, en considérant le cas des parcs naturels régionaux (PNR) français. L’analyse suit une démarche empirique quasi expérimentale (méthode des différences...

Oregon’s public trust doctrine has been misunderstood. The doctrine has not been judicially interpreted in over thirty years but was the subject of an Oregon Attorney General’s opinion in 2005. That opinion interpreted the scope of the doctrine to be limited to the beds of tidelands and...

Twenty years ago Glacier National Park was considered the park most at risk from external threats, such as mining and timber harvesting on adjacent lands. This finding led to an earlier Article that examined whether Glacier officials were effectively defending the park from these external...