Penalver & Sterk Announce New Land Use Textbook

Eduardo Penalver (Cornell) and Stewart Sterk (Cardozo) have a new Land Use textbook that hits the shelves this August.  Here's a letter from the publisher's website on what makes the new book distinctive:

(1)  An intensely practical focus.  Although our book is not short on theory, we emphasize questions and problems that land use lawyers have to face on a regular basis – not just before appellate courts, but before zoning boards, planning commissions, and other administrative bodies.  In fact one entire chapter of the book is devoted to three extensive development problems that force students to confront the issues central to land use practice.  The problems provide an excellent vehicle for classroom role-playing.
 
(2)  Manageable coverage and length.  We have designed our book as a teaching book, not as a desk reference.  Because we focus heavily on questions and problems rather than long textual excerpts, the daily reading load will be reasonable for busy students, and will focus their attention on critical issues.  We believe that an ambitious teacher will be able to cover the entire book (or almost the entire book) in a three-credit course.  Our teachers manual also provides suggestions for adapting the book to a two-credit course or seminar.
 
(3) An extensive teachers manual that will make it particularly easy to switch casebooks.  Our manual does more than summarize the material in the book.  We have provided a “Teaching Strategy” for every section of the book.  In effect, these strategies are themselves a set of teaching notes that indicate what questions we raise in class, and how we elicit student discussion of the issues raised by the casebook materials.  The manual also summarizes each of the principal cases in the book, and provides answers (although not always black-and-white answers) for all of the questions and problems in the casebook.

I always value both Penalver's and Sterk's work, and look forward to cruising thourgh of copy of this text.  Currently, you can peruse page proofs at the Foundation Press website: http://www.westacademic.com/Professors/ProductDetails.aspx?productid=161376&tab=1

Steve Clowney