Land Use Prof Blog

Kansas Outlaws Sustainability

I have been very excited about a project that co-blogger Stephen Miller and I have been a part of that looks at sustainability in the context of climate change. In fact, our recent compilation of essays on the subject have just been published by ELR (look for the book on this topic next summer). So I have been thinking a lot about what sustainability means and what we can do to achieve it. Sometimes, I think perhaps sustainability isn't the answer as the phrase as lost meaning when folks seem to use it to just label something they consider to be "good for the environment." One thing I hadn't considered was just passing a law mandating sustainability. Politicians in Kansas, however, seem to have been contemplating the power of law to dictate sustainability rules. House Bill No. 2366 currently before the Kansas state legislature would make it illegal to use “public funds to promote or implement sustainable development." Frankly with the trouble surrounding just trying to define what should be considered "sustainable development," I am not sure how meaningful such a law would be -- put gotta appluad tease Kansas for trying. As a professor at a public school, I find the provision restricting the teaching of sustainability to be especially worrisome [no public funding can be used for "materials prepared or presented as part of a class, course, curriculum or instructional material"].

Next thing you know, states will be outlawing climate change.

- Jessie Owley

h/t Katy Kuh

Glaeser interview on Cities and Climate Change

As part of a radio show on the recently declared Anthropocene (we're already 8000 years into it!), Big Picture Science featured an interview with Ed Glaeser (Harvard-Economics) about how city living moderates rather than aggravates global warming. The Glaeser interview begins 22 minutes into the show.  Among other things, I learned that the entire population of the Earth could be housed on 1/10th-acre lots within the land area that makes up Texas. (I call the intersection down the block from Festa's house!) 

In arguing for urbanization as a vital greening strategy (or at least an alternative to hunter-gatherer existence), Glaeser draws upon his book, Triumph of the CIty.  Matt blogged about David Reiss's review of that book here.

Jim K.

Professors' Corner teleconference on Legal Education and Uniform Laws

From Wilson Freyermuth (Missouri) via the property listserv comes the announcement for this Wednesday's Professors' Corner--the monthly free teleconference sponsored by the ABA's Section on Real Property, Trusts, & Estates.  This one looks really interesting.  See below for the info and dial-in instructions.

Matt Festa

Professors' Corner: Legal Education and Uniform Laws Group Call

April 10, 2013, 12:30pm Eastern/11:30am Central/9:30am Pacific

Call-in number: 866-646-6488

Passcode: 5577419753

The April 2013 program is entitled "Real Estate-Related Uniform Laws in Progress." This program will discuss the status of the two major uniform law projects related to real estate that are currently underway within the Uniform Law Commission (which we all used to know as NCCUSL).

The first project is a comprehensive revision of the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act. The URLTA was originally promulgated nearly 40 years ago and has been adopted, either in part or in whole, in approximately 20 states. During this month’s program, Professors Sheldon Kurtz (University of Iowa) and Alice Noble-Allgire (Southern Illinois University), who are the co-Reporters for this Act, will discuss the current status of this project and some of the key issues being addressed in this revision. These revisions will receive their "first reading" at this summer's annual meeting of the Uniform Law Commission in July 2013. In case you’re curious, here is a copy of the current draft of the Act: http://law.missouri.edu/freyermuth/JEBURPA/2013apr2_RURLTA_MtgDraft.pdf.

The second pending real-estate related uniform law project is a new project to produce a uniform act governing residential mortgage foreclosure processes. This project began earlier this year after extended study by the Uniform Law Commission, as well as a stakeholder meeting at which input was taken from both industry and consumer groups, as well as federal and state regulators. The Act proposes to address residential mortgage foreclosure processes and mortgagor protections in both judicial foreclosure and nonjudicial foreclosure. During the program, Professors James Smith (University of Georgia) and Alan White (City University of New York), who are the co-Reporters for this project, will discuss the status of this project and the key issues being addressed in this project. Here is a copy of the current draft of this Act, which will likewise receive its "first reading" at this summer's Uniform Law Commission meeting: http://www.uniformlaws.org/shared/docs/Residential%20Real%20Estate%20Mortgage%20Foreclosure%20Process%20and%20Protections/2012mar25_RREMFPP_MtgDraft_Clean.pdf.

Please join us on Wednesday for this month’s call!

Where to go when you really have to go...

Steve Clowney over at the Property Profs blog regularly posts fun maps that he finds. Following that trend, I just have to share this new one I have stumbled across. The folks over at the gothamist blog have looked at public urination citations and created an interactive map of where you are most likely to get busted when you just really need to pee. Take home message for people in Williamsburg: make sure everyone goes potty before you leave your bar house. Maybe what this map really tells us though is that we need more public toilets.

 

Jessie Owley

 

 

Happy Dyngus Day 2013

Happy Dyngus Day!  As everyone surely knows, the Monday after Easter is celbrated as Dyngus Day in Poland and in some U.S. cities with Polish-American cultural history.  At the Land Use Prof Blog we like to feature holdiays that have historical and cultural roots that also involve local politics, community events and neighborhood effects--and therefore, land-use tie-ins.  So here's a link to last year's post on Dyngus Day and land use.  

So today's the day to get a pussywillow branch to chase around that special someone--no April Foolin', even if CNN's Anderson Cooper thinks it's funny and stupid. If I lived in Buffalo or South Bend (e.g.), I'd drop everything today and get down to the Dyngus Day celebrations!

Matt Festa

Google Trends-ing the land use lexicon

I was intrigued by a story on the radio recently about how Google could accurately predict flu outbreaks in a locale weeks before the Center for Disease Control simply by the regional use of flu-related search terms in the search engine.  It made me wonder what Google might be able to tell us about my own personal passions in and around land use. 

I started noodling around with Google Trends, which shows the variability of a search term over time with the most searches labeled as 100.  Here are some results that I think will fascinate land use folks.  Foremost, here is the graphic that shows the relative number of times people searched for the term "land use":

 

 

Now, to all of us writing and reading a "land use" blog, the relative shrinking of land use searches does not bode well.  I see at least two important potential lessons, both of which are unproven hunches.  The first is a guess that searches for all things "land use" peaked around 2005 - 2006 because of the Kelo v. City of New London case, which brought land use planning and land use law into the media spotlight.  Second, I would guess that there are other terms out there that really are about land use but go by other names.  Here is a graphic that shows the Google search trends for several other big terms in the land use lexicon:

 

My question to the folks out there is... what are the land use terms that are on the rise?  What are the terms in our field that are skyrocketing in Google searches?  And moreover, what does that tell us about land use planning, land use law, and the public perception of the legal structures that frame the built envrionment? If anyone decides to spend time Google Trends-ing land use terms and finds one that is peaking now, please let me know and I'll add it to the blog!

Stephen R. Miller

 

 

Fennell on Property in Housing

Lee Anne Fennell (Chicago) has posted Property in Housing, 12 Academia Sinica Law Journal 31 (2013).  The abstract:

The question of how to structure and package the residential experience is a deeply interesting and difficult one. How physically large or small should residential holdings be? How densely should they be clustered? Should spaces for working, recreating, cooking, and bathing be contained within the private residential unit, shared with other households, or procured a la carte? How permanent should the connection be between a household and a living space? How much control should households have over the environment surrounding the dwelling unit? Answers to these and many other queries differ both within and between societies. This keynote address, delivered at Academia Sinica’s Fourth Conference on Law and Economic Analysis in June 2012, shows how a law and economics perspective that emphasizes problems of scale can illuminate the task of configuring residential property optimally.

Matt Festa

TODAY - U Idaho Law Fracking Symposium - Watch LIVE!

Today, Friday, March 29, the University of Idaho College of Law is hosting a symposium on hydraulic fracturing.  You can watch it live here.  The schedule of events and speaker bios is here and below.  All times Mountain.

Introductions and Welcome (8:30 – 8:45)

Science and Technology of Hydraulic Fracturing (8:45-9:45)
Moderator: Anastasia Telesetsky (Idaho)
John Imse (NORWEST)
Virginia Gillerman (Idaho Geological Survey)

Break (9:45-10:00)

Regulation of Hydraulic Fracturing’s Environmental Effects (10:00 – 12:35)
Water. (10:00 – 11:00)
Moderator: Barbara Cosens (Idaho)
Joseph Dellapenna (Villanova)
Robin Kundis Craig (Utah)

Air & Land. (11:00 – 12:20)
Moderator: Jerrold Long (Idaho)
Jim Wedeking (Sidley Austin LLP)
Carlos Romo (Baker Botts LLP)
Elizabeth Burleson (Pace)

Morning Wrap-Up Panel Discussion (12:20 – 12:35)

Lunch Break (12:35-1:50)

State & Local Government Regulation of Hydraulic Fracturing (1:50 – 2:50)
Moderator: Stephen R. Miller (Idaho)
Uma Outka (Kansas)
Michael Christian (Marcus Christian Hardee & Davies LLP)

Two Hydraulic Fracturing Hot Topics: Trespass & Trade Secrets (2:50 – 3:50)
Moderator: TBA
Chris Kulander (Texas Tech)
Keith Hall (Louisiana State)

Break (3:50 – 4:00)

Does Hydraulic Fracturing Have a Role in a Clean Energy Future? (4:00 – 5:00)
Moderator: Dale D. Goble (Idaho)
Joshua Fershee (West Virginia)
Patrick Parenteau (Vermont)

Concluding remarks (5:00 – 5:15)

Reception (5:15 – 6:15)

I've been working with the students on this event for a year, and am really looking forward to it.  Hope you can join us online!

Stephen R. Miller

Arnold on Framing Watersheds

Craig Anthony (Tony) Arnold (Louisville)--a friend of and contributor to the Land Use Prof Blog--has posted Framing Watersheds, a chapter in Environmental Law and Contrasting Ideas of Nature: A Constructivist Approach, Keith Hirokawa, ed., Cambridge University Press, 2013.  The abstract:

Watershed institutions have emerged in the U.S. out of the structural fragmentation and functional inadequacies of several areas of law and policy. While these institutions organize governance, planning, and management functions around a type of ecosystem (i.e., watersheds), they are highly diverse and evolve over time. This book chapter seeks to understand the diversity of watershed institutions by employing framing analysis to identify the many cognitive and socio-political frames by which the legal system conceptualizes watersheds. More importantly, the chapter analyzes whether watershed institutions have adaptive capacity and can promote ecological and social resilience over time. The processes of multiple framing (multi-framing) and reframing, as seen in several case studies of multi-faceted and evolving watershed institutions, offer considerable promise for society and its watershed institutions to adapt to complex and dynamic conditions. The book chapter explores the barriers to and problems with multi-framing and reframing processes, as well as the opportunities for and benefits of multi-framing and reframing, in light of emerging scientific and social theories about resilience and systemic change.

Matt Festa

Land Use March Madness Bracketology

Right now many people across America are anxiously awaiting the next round of contests to take place this weekend in the Sweet Sixteen.  Of course, I'm referring to the Sweet Sixteen of the Urbanist Bracket Challenge over at the Atlantic's Cities Blog. 

Who are you rooting for in the big matchups--Bike Lanes vs. Streetcars?  Farmers' Markets vs. BIDs?  Festival vs. Stadium?  Congestion Pricing vs. Electric Car Charge Stations?

Which regional bracket will produce the champion: Le Corbusier, Dandyhorse, Sidewalk Ballet, or Ed Koch?

Unlike most NCAA basketball pools, you can still vote in the Urbanist Bracket Challenge!  Check it out at the website.  Over 20,000 votes have been cast so far (probably more than your office pool!) so get involved and make your voice heard.  Enjoy the land use Madness.

Matt Festa

Protected Lands SSRN

There are a lot of SSRN eJournals out there. I subscribe to more thanI need to, but a new eJournal taht debuted a few months ago has really been a fun aggregation of articles.

Nancy McLaughlin (Utah Professor) and James Olmsted (Oregon Attorney) have created the "Protected Lands Law & Policy e Journal." It is the only journal I am aware of with an attorney editor and co-sponsorship from a law firm. [Maybe there are tons, but I just don't have to subscribe to them.]

The journal's description:

This eJournal distributes working and accepted paper abstracts addressing the law and policies relating to the protection of land for its ecological, natural, scenic, historic, recreational, cultural, or resource values. Protected lands can be either public or private lands, and include wilderness areas; wildlife refuges and preserves; local, state, and national parks; and Forest Service and BLM lands. Of particular interest are fee title lands held by charitable conservation organizations (land trusts) and lands protected by conservation easements held by land trusts or governmental entities. Protected lands may also result from the operation of environmental law regimes, such as the creation of Habitat Conservation Plans under the U.S. Endangered Species Act and wetland mitigation banks under the U.S. Clean Water Act. Issues relating to the exercise of Native American Sovereignty or Native American statutory and treaty rights, as well as the protection of urban lands, including urban parks, gardens, and "foodscapes," are also pertinent to this eJournal. Because existing human occupation and use of land often conflicts with protecting the land, this eJournal invites discussion of social issues arising from the removal of people from land or limiting uses of land. Land protection also raises economic issues, including reduction in the value of land and its income producing potential; local, state, and federal tax incentive issues; and the commoditization of property rights through, for example, transfer of development rights programs, carbon offset programs, mitigation banks, and provision of natural or ecosystem services. Land protection raises further issues relating to nonprofit governance, the laws governing the administration of charitable gifts, and the role of the courts as well as federal and state regulators, including the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Internal Revenue Service, and state attorneys general, in ensuring the continued protection of the land. This eJournal is international and interdisciplinary and welcomes submissions from around the globe.

How can I not love an eJournal specifically interested in conservation easements! The journal editors and advisory board are the heavy hitters in conservation easement scholarship (as well as experts in environmental and land use law).

- Jessie Owley

 

Poirier's Comparative Analysis of the Right to Dwell

Marc Poirier (Seton Hall) has posted Brazilian Regularization of Title in Light of Moradia, Compared to the United States’ Understandings of Homeownership and Homelessness, __ U. Miami Inter-Am. L. Rev.  ___ (forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This Essay considers the cultural resonances of regularization of title (regularização) for homeownership in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. It compares those resonances to the cultural meaning of homeownership in the United States. Brazil’s approach is informed by an understanding of moradia, a right to dwell someplace, that is a far cry from its typical English translation as a right to housing. Brazil also draws on constitutional provisions and a long Latin American tradition concerning the social function of property, as well as a general theoretical understanding of the right to the city and of cidadania, a certain kind of citizenship. All of these frames construct homeownership as a gateway to interconnection and full participation in the life of the city. This is distinctly different from the individualistic cast of the prevailing understanding of homeownership in the United States, as personal success and the achievement of wealth, status, and a private castle.

The Essay also considers the standard United States construction of homelessness, which again tends to frame the issue in terms of individual responsibility or blame or of the role of institutional structures as they affect individuals, and typically fails to recognize the effect of having no property on relationships and interconnectedness and ultimately citizenship. The Essay advances five reason for the differences between Brazilian and United States understandings of homeownership. These include very different histories concerning the distribution of public lands; the absence in United States property jurisprudence of anything like the notion of a social function of property; the physical invisibility of informal communities in the United States; United States jurisprudence’s rejection of vague, aspirational human rights claims as law; and an insistence in United States jurisprudence on legal monism and an abstract, universalizing account of property ownership that valorizes one-size-fits-all law rather than case-by-case accounts of how land and dwellings are managed by various local communities.

Finally, the Essay observes a recent groundswell of United States scholarship that debunks “A own Blackacre” as an adequate account of the ownership of land and homes, insisting on a more race- and class-informed account as to both the history of homeownership and possible solutions for providing secure dwelling for the poor. The Essay recommends a convergence of studies of informal communities worldwide with a more nuanced, race- and class-informed understanding of homeownership.

Jim K.

ClassCrits Deadline Extended

I posted about this conference before. They have decided to extend the deadline for the Call for Papers.

CALL FOR PAPERS & PARTICIPATION

ClassCrits VI

Stuck in Forward?

Debt, Austerity and the Possibilities of the Political 

 Sponsored by Southwestern Law School & U.C. Davis School of Law

Los Angeles, CA    * November 15-16, 2013

 

Keynote Speaker: Professor Akhil Gupta, Department of Anthropology

Director, Center for India and South Asia, University of California, Los Angeles

Proposal Submission Procedure and EXTENDED Deadline.  Please submit your proposal by email to classcrits@gmail.com by May 15, 2013.  Proposals should include the author’s name, institutional affiliation and contact information, the title of the paper to be presented, and an abstract of the paper to be presented of no more than 750 words.  Junior scholar submissions for works in progress should be clearly marked as “JUNIOR SCHOLAR WORK IN PROGRESS PROPOSAL.” Visit the ClassCrits website at http://classcrits.wordpress.com for more information about this year’s themes and topics.

 

- Jessie Owley

The Debate over Richard Florida's views on the Creative Class: Richard Florida weighs in

For those of you who just cannot get enough of Richard Florida, the Daily Beast this week features an exchange between Joel Kotkin and Richard Florida on whether Florida's evolution as a proponent of cities being geared toward the "creative class" constitutes a full-scale retreat from his emphasis on this group as a generator of local and regional economic growth.  Florida's installment references a related piece on the importance of urban design that promotes personal interaction that he published in the Wall Street Journal back in July.

HT, Chris O'Byrne.

Jim K.

U Idaho Law Fracking Symposium / Couture on Securities Regulation and Fracking

First, my last reminder that the University of Idaho College of Law’s symposium in Boise is next Friday, March 29, and will focus on the legal aspects of hydraulic fracturing.  Check out the schedule here. 

Most importantly for this group, the symposium will be streamed live for free beginning at 8:30 a.m. Mountain time.  We are also offering 5 CLEs for attorneys that view remotely for a modest $145 by registering here (non-Idaho attorneys will also have to submit written materials to their home jurisdiction bar for credit).  As faculty adviser for the symposium I have to say that I believe our students have put together a great collection of academics and practitioners working in this field, and I think it will prove to be an event of national significance. 

Second, a colleague of mine that specializes in securities regulation, Wendy Gerwick Couture (Idaho), recently posted a great article on securities disclosure requirements related to hydraulic fracturing.  Her article is entitled “Securities Regulation as Gap-Filler: The Example of Hydraulic Fracturing,” forthcoming in 41 Securities Regulation Law Journal __ (2013).  Here’s the abstract:

Hydraulic fracturing is a controversial well stimulation process used to maximize the extraction of underground resources like oil and gas. There has been a significant public and scholarly outcry for a federal regulatory response to hydraulic fracturing. Despite the perception of a slow federal regulatory response to hydraulic fracturing, one area of federal regulation has dealt extensively with hydraulic fracturing: securities regulation. In particular, public companies that are engaged in hydraulic fracturing operations must (1) make extensive periodic disclosures under Securities Exchange Act regulations; and (2) comply with the Exchange Act’s regulations regarding shareholder access to company proxy statements. After explaining how the securities laws regulate hydraulic fracturing, albeit indirectly, this Essay concludes with a broader discussion about the gap-filling role of securities regulation within the federal regulatory scheme.

It’s a great inter-disciplinary piece worth checking out!

Stephen R. Miller

Wahi on Land Acquisition, Development, and the Constitution in India

Namita Wahi has posted Land Acquisition, Development, and the Constitution, Seminar Magazine, Feb. 2013.  The abstract:

In this article, I argue that the debates surrounding the adoption of a fundamental right to property in the Constitution were centred around the somewhat paradoxical desire to achieve a liberal democratic legal order which guaranteed the rights to liberty, equality and property, while simultaneously embarking on a transformation of the economic and social order considered imperative to prevent a revolution. This transformation was pegged on a development strategy involving a move from a feudal agrarian to a capital intensive industrial society. A major component of this transformative agenda was land reform, involving zamindari abolition abolition and redistribution of land among the peasants. Equally important, however, was state planned industrial growth and encouragement of growth of private industry.

The article goes on to assess the history of land acquisition laws in this country against this backdrop. In particular, it analyses the key features of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, including the major problems with its implementation. It then analyses the proposed Land Acquisition Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, with a view to determining the extent to which the bill addresses the problems with the Land Acquisition Act, 1894. Finally, the article describes the special constitutional provisions for the Scheduled Areas as contained in the Fifth and Sixth Schedules and analyses to what extent the LARR bill is compliant with existing constitutional guarantees.  

Matt Festa

Arnold on Framing Watersheds

Craig Anthony (Tony) Arnold (Louisville) has posted Framing Watersheds, forthcoming in Environmental Law and Contrasting Ideas of Nature: A Constructivist Approach, Keith Hirokawa, ed., Cambridge University Press, 2013.  The abstract:

Watershed institutions have emerged in the U.S. out of the structural fragmentation and functional inadequacies of several areas of law and policy. While these institutions organize governance, planning, and management functions around a type of ecosystem (i.e., watersheds), they are highly diverse and evolve over time. This book chapter seeks to understand the diversity of watershed institutions by employing framing analysis to identify the many cognitive and socio-political frames by which the legal system conceptualizes watersheds. More importantly, the chapter analyzes whether watershed institutions have adaptive capacity and can promote ecological and social resilience over time. The processes of multiple framing (multi-framing) and reframing, as seen in several case studies of multi-faceted and evolving watershed institutions, offer considerable promise for society and its watershed institutions to adapt to complex and dynamic conditions. The book chapter explores the barriers to and problems with multi-framing and reframing processes, as well as the opportunities for and benefits of multi-framing and reframing, in light of emerging scientific and social theories about resilience and systemic change.

Tony is a friend of this blog and an occasional Contributing Editor, as well as a leader in the emerging areas of sustainability and adaptive management.  Looks like an interesting volume by Keith Hirokawa and others.  

Matt Festa

Sepe & White on Urban Infrastructure & The Rule of Law

Simone M. Sepe (Arizona) and James T. White (Arizona) have posted The New City Beautiful: Urban Infrastructure and the Rule of Law.  The abstract:

This article argues that urban physical disorder weakens the relational social contract upon which the rule of law is built. Under this social contract, citizens follow legal rules in exchange for certain goods and services from the government, and citizens conditionally cooperate with each other, following the rules because others follow the rules as well. Urban physical disorder, as evidenced by crumbling urban infrastructure, signals both that the government is not fulfilling its obligations under the social contract and that others are not following the rules, contributing to a downward spiral that ultimately leads to a culture unsupportive of the rule of law. 

To test this theoretical account, this article analyzes empirical data from 124 countries related to the quality of the urban environment and the degree of commitment to the rule of law, as measured by perceived corruption. This analysis shows that the rule of law is both strongly correlated and causally dependent upon the quality of the urban environment. Contrary to the conventional wisdom that austerity is an effective means of controlling corruption, this article thus suggests that public investment in urban infrastructure and the creation of quality urban environments are essential components of efforts to cultivate and maintain the rule of law.

Really fascinating.  Tying the built environment to the rule of law is, in my opinion, one of the most important issues for the near future.

Matt Festa

Is there a new urbanist, or city-friendly, children’s book out there?

A couple weeks ago, I received a great gift in the mail.  My wife and I had a baby girl back in
September, and the gift was from a mentor of mine, Fred Etzel, an adjunct who has taught land use law at Berkeley’s city planning program for decades.  The gift was The Little House, the 1943-classic by Virginia Lee Burton.  I was so excited to receive this because I realized, as I read it to my daughter, that I had read this book as a child, that I loved the pictures then, and that it was probably the first time in my life that I was interested in land use!  I was excited to be able to share this passion with my daughter.

As we read, though, I began to think about the overarching message of the book.  For those who haven’t read the book (spoiler alert:  plot summary ahead!), it follows the life of a house that lives on a bucolic hill that is in tune with the seasons, that is slowly encroached upon and de-spoiled by the big bad city, and then is removed back to another bucolic hill where it was once again in tune with the seasons.  The gist, as was probably ripe for the suburb-loving Forties, is that cities are scary places out of tune with the environment. 

While I continue to love the book both for nostalgic reasons and because it is the only children’s book I know about land use, I wondered if there was another children’s book out there that might depict the new rise of the city and all of the great things that are happening out there in urban environments right now.  So I thought I’d throw it open to discussion:  any land use-lovers out there with recommendations for children’s books that express contemporary views of cities and urbanism, or otherwise portray strong land use or environmental values?  A newbie parent needs to know!

Oh, and if you don't own The Little House, you can watch a Disney cartoon of the book here.

Stephen R. Miller

Hazard Mitigation Planning

Land use planning can get thrown for a loop where planners fail to adequately account for potential natural or man-made human- caused disasters (although I don’t generally accept the differences we draw between what we consider to be natural versus human-caused, as though perhaps humans are unnatural?). Researchers at the University of Idaho (home of co-blogger Stephen Miller) have been examining local hazard mitigation plans. A forthcoming article in Applied Geography describes hazard mitigation planning and presents a rubric for assessing such plans in both development and implementation. I am particularly intrigued by their findings that urban areas focus on prevention and rural areas on response. Interesting correlation perhaps with perceived resiliencies of those environments?

Tim G. Fraziera, Monica H. Walkerb, Aparna Kumaric, & Courtney M. Thompson, Opportunities and Constraints to Hazard Mitigation Planning, 40 Applied Geography, 52 (2013).

ABSTRACT: Hazard mitigation plans (HMPs) play a critical role in the reduction of societal loss from natural and human-caused hazards and disasters. The occurrence of hazardous events cannot be prevented but hazard mitigation planning when diligently applied has proven to be an effective tool for enhancing local community resilience and reducing societal losses. HMPs are planning documents that aim to increase community preparedness and resiliency, and decrease vulnerability in the event of a hazard. However, due to a variety of reasons many communities often fail to address criteria that could protect against future societal losses. For instance, minimum requirements, as stipulated by the Disaster Mitigation Act 2000, are all that is needed to qualify for federal mitigation grant funding regardless of plan quality or appropriateness of HMPs to local hazards and risks. Additionally local emergency managers and planners also face constraints like integration of HMPs into comprehensive plans and a standardized tool to evaluate plan quality. In essence most communities in the US have HMPs but lack a method of evaluating the quality and effectiveness of their plans for mitigating hazards. Building on the standard HMP minimum requirements, additional criteria established in prominent hazard literature, and information culled from interviews, this study develops an evaluation matrix to assess local HMP quality. Based on the factors mentioned above, researchers explored the opportunities and constraints to HMP development faced by jurisdictions within our Western Washington study area. Conclusions reveal that available resources, level of sophistication, and political complexities affect the quality of HMP development and the actual implementation of mitigation planning strategies.

Jessica Owley