Land Use Prof Blog

Teaching Property and Pre-Columbian Land Use



I’m getting ready to start teaching Johnson v. M’Intosh in Property on Monday.  I like the choice by the Dukeminier book website to look at the Iroquois three-crop agrarian culture to challenge the hunter-gatherer generalization about Native American land use; but, I think the point about the variety of Native relationships to land could be strengthened by showing just how closely some indigenous land tenure systems resembled European feudalism. 

 

My own law-school-days study of Aztec land ownership showed me a complex scheme of plot allotments to small family groups with other parcels set aside for the economic benefit of aristocratic, military and clerical castes.  Iroquois and Huron farming economies also depended on allotment to female clan members.  The historical record strongly controverts Locke’s defense of acquisition by discovery/conquest. 

 

I would love to hear about anyone bringing Pre-Columbian land use patterns into their teaching or writing.  I think it offers many possibilities for teaching on sustainability, female land tenure and the fundamental connection between how we get our food and how we relate to land.

 

Jim K.

kellyj@wlu.edu

 

Food Truck Scholarship

Chad has a great post below on the latest craze, food trucks.  By coincidence, just yesterday I saw this SSRN paper by Ernesto Hernandez Lopez (Chapman): LA’s Taco Truck War: How Law Cooks Food Culture Contests.  The abstract:

This paper examines the Los Angeles “Taco Truck War” (2008-9), when the city of Los Angeles and LA county used parking regulations to restrict “loncheros,” i.e. “taco trucks.” It describes the legal doctrine used by courts to invalidate these local restrictions. The California Vehicle code makes local food truck regulations illegal. Decades of court decisions affirm this. The paper sheds light, legal and cultural, on food truck debates, which will surely expand nationwide. It examines: the cultural and business arguments for food truck regulations; food’s role in migrant, community, and national identities; Mexican food’s influence in California culture; and recent trends in food trucks such as Koggi BBQ.

And from earlier this year, Alfonso Morales (Urban & Regional Planning, Wisconsin) and Gregg W. Kettles (Law, Mississippi College) posted Healthy Food Outside: Farmers' Markets, Taco Trucks, and Sidewalk Fruit Vendors, published in the Journal of Contemporary Health Law and Policy, Vol. 20 (2009).  The abstract:

This paper explores the many dimensions of street vending and public markets, the multiple intersections vending and markets have with food regulation, and the historical connection markets have with other policy problems. We develop the article in four parts, following the introduction found in section one the article touches on three elements of law and public policy. The second section considers markets and merchants in public goods with their associated dilemmas. Our approach is to reconfigure the emphasis on public space as transportation by justifying the use of the street and sidewalk for street vending. The importance of public space for commerce and other creative activities bridges the second and third sections of the article. The third section chronicles the history of law and regulation around street and public markets. Here we emphasize how cities historically used public markets as public policy tools to address food security, employment, and to help those growing cities accommodate new immigrants. The fourth section focuses on public health by examining the law of outdoor food sold on the street. Through our analysis we set forth numerous suggestions for advocacy, policy, and legal reform.

Chad's right, food trucks are becoming a big deal.  I was skeptical at first, but it looks like they have come a long way from the "roach coaches" I remember on Army posts.  Check out the articles that he linked to, and for an even less highbrow alternative you can watch the Food Network's The Great Food Truck Race (you know that a trend has arrived when it gets a reality show).  It's a serious question, though, how cities are going to choose to accommodate or regulate this phenomenon through their land use laws.  

Matt Festa

Congress for the New Urbanism 18: Atlanta

Last week Jamie posted about the "Sprawlanta" video, part of the project American Makeover: An Online Film Series about New Urbanism.  "Sprawlanta" won first prize at last year's Congress for the New Urbanism video competition.

This week, the Congress for the New Urbanism meets in SprawlAtlanta for CNU 18, its annual conference.  The description:

Is New Urbanism the prescription for healthier communities? Increasing scientific evidence suggests that community design -- land use, design character, transportation systems, sustainability, and density -- can promote physical activity and lifelong communities; lower the risk of traffic injuries, obesity, heart disease, and hypertension; improve air quality, affordability, social equity, connectivity, mental health and long-term value; increase social connection, sense of community and healthy food access; and reduce crime, violence and contributions to climate change. Organized with assistance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Congress for the New Urbanism 18, "New Urbanism: Rx for Healthy Places," will present new research and innovative techniques for assessing the health impact of land use, transportation planning, and community design decisions -- from fine grained to mega-regional scales. Share the opportunities and challenges of designing and retrofitting communities that make it easier for people to live healthy lives -- CNU's 18th annual Congress in Atlanta, May 19-22, 2010. Preceding the Congress will be certification training, the NextGen Congress and other partner events May 17-18, 2010. For further information, visit http://www.cnu.org/cnu18 .  

Looks like the program has a very interesting lineup of speakers and events, as usual.  If you can make it to CNU 18, send us a report!  

In other CNU news ("CNUse"? . . . sorry . . .), guess which city will be introducing the newest CNU Full Chapter this weekend?  Houston, we have a Chapter!  Board members Andrew Burleson and David Crossley will be also be speaking in Atlanta.  Congrats to CNU-Houston.  

Matt Festa

Zoning Out Fast Food

Notre Dame law student Allyson C. Spacht has published her note "The Zoning Diet: Using Restrictive Zoning to Shrink American Waistlines" at 85 Notre Dame L. Rev. 391.

An excerpt (cites ommitted):

In July 2008, the Los Angeles City Council unanimously approved an Interim Control Ordinance (ICO) "designed to address the imbalance in food options currently available in South Los Angeles." The ordinance proposes a one-year moratorium on new fast food restaurants in the South Los Angeles, Southeast Los Angeles, West Adams, Baldwin Hills, and Leimert Park community planning areas. The ordinance defines a fast food restaurant as "any establishment which dispenses food for consumption on or off the premises, and which has the following characteristics: a limited menu, items prepared in advance or prepared or heated quickly, no table orders, and food served in disposable wrapping or containers." The ICO was drafted and passed in order to provide a strong and competitive commercial sector which best serves the needs of the community, attract uses which strengthen the economic base and expand market opportunities for existing and new businesses, enhance the appearance of commercial districts, and identify and address the over-concentration of uses which are detrimental to the health and welfare of the people of the community.

The goal of the ICO is to allow city planners to analyze the quantity of fast food restaurants in these communities and to develop solutions to combat the extreme imbalance that has resulted in these areas from decades of spot zoning and neglect in community planning and development. With minimal land remaining for development in these areas, the ICO allows city planners to determine what types of businesses best suit a community with the highest incidence of diabetes in the county and an obesity rate that is nine percent above the county average. The ICO enables council members to actively attract healthier options to these communities, including grocery stores and sit-down restaurants, by preserving the limited existing land for such uses. Councilwoman Jan C. Perry, author of the ICO, and fellow supporters of the ordinance argue that "making healthy decisions about food is difficult when people have small incomes, the grocery store is five miles away and a $ 1 cheeseburger is right around the corner." The ICO serves as just one of the many planning tools the Los Angeles City Council hopes to employ "'to attract sit-down restaurants, full service grocery stores, and healthy food alternatives... in an aggressive manner.'"

I've been aware of the lack of access to quality food in lower income urban areas, but this is the first I've heard of an attempt to zone fast food out of inner city areas and bring in grocery stores and better dining alternatives.

Jamie Baker Roskie