199552_cover 11/30/06 8:42 PM Page 1 Land Use Planning/Policy Rutherford H. Platt Land Use and Society Revised Edition utherford latt R H. P Platt Land Use and Society is a unique and compelling exploration of interactions among law, geog- raphy, history, and culture and of their joint influence on the evolution of land use and urban form in the United States. Originally published in 1996, this completely revised, expanded, and LAND updated edition retains the strengths of the earlier version while introducing a host of new topics and insights on the twenty-first century metropolis. This new edition devotes greater attention to urban land use and related social issues with two new chapters that trace American city and metropolitan change over the twentieth century. More emphasis is given to social justice and the environmental movement and their respective roles in shaping land use and policy in recent decades. This edition of Land Use and Society is USE updated to reflect the 2000 Census, the most recent Supreme Court decisions, and various top- ics of current interest, such as affordable housing, protecting urban water supplies, urban bio- diversity, and “ecological cities.” AND Advanced praise for Land Use and Society, Revised Edition: “The first edition was excellent: readable, teachable, and usable, plus checkable for magpie facts. The new version is even better, with a sharper historical, political, and aesthetic feel. This book runs the table against other land use texts. There won’t be a stronger one until Platt revises again.” SOCIETY —Frank J. Popper, professor, Urban Studies Program, Rutgers University; Visiting Professor, Environmental Studies Program, Princeton University “This book is required reading for students and professionals interested in how Americans have used and abused our natural landscape and a prescription for how we can produce a better future for our land and our people.” —Edward J. Blakely, Dean of the Milano Graduate School, New School University, New York “With great insight, Platt documents how societies define land as a resource. Through careful and detailed analysis, he reveals this incredibly fascinating story of contestation over meaning, access, rights, and obligation. For those interested in understanding these processes, there will be no single better source than this book.” —William D. Solecki, professor, Department of Geography, Hunter College, City University of New York Revised Rutherford H. Platt is professor of geography and planning law in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Edition Washington • Covelo • London LAND USE AND SOCIETY www.islandpress.org ISBN 13:978-1-55963-685-8 ISBN 1-55963-685-8 All Island Press books are printed on recycled, acid-free paper. Cover design: Jeannet Leendertse Geography, Law, and Public Policy Cover photos (from left to right): eighteenth century townhouse at Bedford Square, London (photo by author); Revised Edition 1901 McMillan Commission Plan for the Mall in Washington, D.C. (Gutheim 1976, fig. 16); St. Mark’s Square, Venice (photo by author). ABOUT ISLAND PRESS island press is the only nonprofit organization in the United States whose principal purpose is the publication of books on environmental issues and natural resource man- agement. We provide solutions-oriented information to professionals, public officials, business and community leaders, and concerned citizens who are shaping responses to environmental problems. In 2004, Island Press celebrates its twentieth anniversary as the leading provider of timely and practical books that take a multidisciplinary approach to critical environ- mental concerns. Our growing list of titles reflects our commitment to bringing the best of an expanding body of literature to the environmental community throughout North America and the world. Support for Island Press is provided by the Agua Fund, Brainerd Foundation, Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Educational Foundation of America, The Ford Foundation, The George Gund Foundation, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Henry Luce Foundation, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Cur- tis and Edith Munson Foundation, National Environmental Trust, The New-Land Foundation, Oak Foundation, The Overbrook Foundation, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, The Pew Charitable Trusts, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Winslow Foundation, and other generous donors. The opinions expressed in this book are those of the author(s) and do not necessar- ily reflect the views of these foundations. LAND USE AND SOCIETY Land Use RUTHERFORD H. PLATT and Society GEOGRAPHY, LAW, AND PUBLIC POLICY Revised Edition ISLAND PRESS Washington ~ Covelo ~ London Copyright © 2004 Rutherford H. Platt All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher: Island Press, 1718 Connecticut Ave., Suite 300, NW, Washington, DC 20009. island press is a trademark of The Center for Resource Economics. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data. Platt, Rutherford H. Land use and society : geography, law, and public policy / Rutherford H. Platt.—Rev. ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 1-55963-684-x (cloth : alk. paper) — isbn 1-55963-685-8 (paper : alk. paper) 1. Land use—Law and legislation—United States. 2. Land use—United States. 3. Physical geography—United States. I. Title. kf5698.p588 2004 346.7304Ј5—dc22 2003024791 British Cataloguing-in-Publication data available. Printed on recycled, acid-free paper Design and composition by Wilsted & Taylor Publishing Services Manufactured in the United States of America 10987654321 TO JACK AND ELIZABETH . Grandchildren who are above average! CONTENTS Introduction: Geography, Law, and Landscape: Reflections on a Cross-Country Flight XI PART I Preliminaries: Land, Geography, and Law 1 chapter 1 The Meanings and Uses of Land 3 chapter 2The Interaction of Geography and 28Law PART II From Feudalism to Federalism: PART II The Social Organization of Land Use 63 chapter 3 Historic Roots of Modern Land Use Institutions 65 chapter 4 City Growth and Reform in the Nineteenth Century 95 chapter 5 Building a Metropolitan Nation: 1900–1945 150 chapter 6 The Polarized Metropolis: 1945–2000 177 PART III Discordant Voices: Property Ownership, Local PART III Government, and the Courts 207 chapter 7 Property Rights: The Owner as Planner 209 chapter 8 The Tapestry of Local Governments 236 chapter 9 Local Zoning and Growth Management 260 chapter 10 Land Use and the Courts 291 PART IV Beyond Localism: The Search PART IV for Broader Land Use Policies 333 chapter 11 Land Programs: Regional, State, Federal 335 chapter 12Congress and the Metropolitan Environment368 CONCLUSION Status and Prospects 419 Acknowledgments 433 About the Author 435 Some Common Acronyms 437 List of Cases 439 Index 443 INTRODUCTION Geography, Law, and Landscape: Reflections on a Cross-Country Flight To geographers and their fellow travelers, there are few greater treats than to fly a considerable distance over land on a clear day with a view unobstructed by the air- plane wing. I recently enjoyed such a flight nonstop from San Francisco to Boston. Between the sourdough vendors and live lobster purveyors of those two airports stretch about 2,700 miles of air distance. Along this trajectory, the route traverses a succession of geographic regions marked by vivid contrasts in both physical and human characteristics. Even the casual observer can scarcely fail to notice and per- haps to wonder about the diversity of the perceived landscape: its physical land- forms, land cover, and patterns of rural and urban land use. If the movie is really boring, the window-gazer may attempt to annotate the passing scene by assigning causative factors and implications—some definite, others hypothetical—to what is seen or imagined in the landscape below. This is thinking geographically. The aircraft ascends over the crowded East Bay cities of Oakland and Berkeley, where world-class scholarship and abject poverty coexist. The hills and flatlands are riddled with seismic faults that caused the Nimitz Freeway to collapse in the October 17, 1989, earthquake and where 3,300 homes burned in the hills two years later (Figures I-1 and I-2). Homes yield to cattle and windmill “farms” (dating back to Carter administration sustainable energy policies). Now at high altitude, we roar eastward over the geometric patterns of irrigated fields of the Central Valley (handsomely subsidized by the federal taxpayer). Next we hurtle over the snowy peaks and steep declivities of the Sierra Nevada (where John Muir battled Gi‡ord Pinchot over damming the Hetch Hetchy Valley to provide water supply for San Francisco after its 1906 fire). We streak across the rocky wastes and hills of the Great Basin, where early nuclear weapons were tested and eternal debate today prevents use of the Yucca Mountain facility for high-level radioactive waste storage. Cities and irrigated agriculture briefly reappear in the Mormon settlement region east of Great Salt xi Lake. The Wasatch Range, crisscrossed by ski slopes and clear-cutting, gives way to the upper Colorado River Plateau, another sparsely inhabited region of high xii INTRODUCTION FIGURE I-1 The Imperial Valley of California from high altitude, with intensively FIGURE P-1 irrigated lowlands bordered by barren uplands. (Photo by author.) desert, sage brush, and spectacular landforms. Downstream on the Colorado River, the one-armed geologist and geographer John Wesley Powell made his epic journey through the Grand Canyon in 1869 that stimulated his proposals for large-scale irrigation projects in the arid West. We pass near Dinosaur National Park, where Echo Park Dam, one of Powell’s proposed irrigation projects, was defeated by David Brower in the 1950s at the dawn of the modern environmental movement. We cross the cloud-shrouded Rocky Mountains whose dwindling snow cover (due to global warming) is a critical water source for cities and farms all the way to Los Angeles, San Diego, and northern Mexico.