Land, Climate and Justice Conference
The symposium will provide a setting for interdisciplinary conversations about a range of topics, including property rights, land-use regulation, housing, sustainability, environmental justice, segregation, metropolitan inequality, cities, rural communities and federal-state-local relations. Scholars from across the nation and UVA will present their research during seven 90-minute panels. At the event’s conclusion, PLACE will host a screening of the short documentary “Pine Grove: More Than a School,” about a movement to save a historic Black schoolhouse in rural Virginia.
Sponsored by the Program in Law, Communities and the Environment (PLACE); the UVA Karsh Institute of Democracy; the Local Equity and Democracy Working Group (LEAD); and the Virginia Environmental Law Journal (VELJ).
Hosts include UVA history professor Andrew Kahrl, and law professors Moira O’Neill and Richard C. Schragger.
Event Details
Thursday, March 28
9:20-9:30 a.m.
Welcome and Introductions
9:30-11 a.m.
Session I: Property, Land, History
- K-Sue Park, “Property, Sovereignty, and Title Registries: The Local Infrastructure of Private Ownership”
- Emily Prifogle, “Land Use Law in the Countryside: Drawing Boundaries in the 20th Century Midwest”
- Jessica Shoemaker, “Privatizing the Countryside”
- Thad Williamson, “Density Without Displacement? The Challenge of Greening Cities Without Gentrifying Them, in Richmond and Beyond”
- Moderator: Richard C. Schragger, University of Virginia School of Law
11:15 a.m.-12:45 p.m.
Session II: Environmental Justice, Climate and Inequality
- Michelle Anderson, “The Inequality and Climate Change Loop”
- Chris Serkin, “The Myth of Self-Sufficiency: Municipal Competence as Climate Strategy”
- Todd Swanstrom, “Housing Deterioration as Environmental Injustice”
- Mildred Warner and Andrés Martínez, “Courts, Rights of Rivers, and the City: Insights from Latin America”
- Moderator: Cale Jaffe, University of Virginia School of Law
12:45-1:30 p.m.
Lunch Break
1:30-3 p.m.
Session III: Development, Displacement and Housing Justice
- David Imbroscio, “Rethinking Land-Use Intensification and Housing Justice”
- Beryl Satter, “Ghetto as Conduit: A Short History of Racism and Reinvestment”
- Ben Teresa, “Legal Innovation and Investor-led Transformation of Housing Tenure”
- Moderator: Malo Hutson, University of Virginia School of Architecture
3:15-4:45 p.m.
Session IV: Land Use Policy and Politics I
- Eric Biber, “The Politics of Development Approvals”
- Chris Elmendorf, “Price Controls, Demand Subsidies, or More Supply? Public Opinion About Housing Policy”
- Moira O’Neill, “What Does More State Oversight Offer? The San Francisco Case”
- Justin Steil, “Flooding Disasters, Renters, and Fair Housing”
- Moderator: Jennifer Lawrence, University of Virginia School of Architecture
Friday, March 29
9-10:30 a.m.
Session V: Land Use Policy and Politics II
- Sara Bronin, “Reforming Federal Historic Preservation Policies Affecting Housing, Climate, and Indian Tribes”
- Ingrid Gould Ellen, “Supply Skepticism Revisited”
- Richard C. Schragger and Sarah New, “Underdevelopment in an (Up)Zoned City”
- Michael Storper, “The Housing Question: Revisiting the Supply-Affordability Relationship”
- Moderator: Moira O’Neill, University of Virginia School of Law
10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Session VI: Land Use Regulation and Reform
- Vicki Been, “State Land Use Reforms and Private Property Rights”
- Molly Brady, “The Power to Declare Public Policy”
- John Infranca, “Decoding Discretion: Reforming Zoning Administration”
- Thomas Silverstein, “Climate Gentrification, Public Housing Redevelopment, and the Role of Exclusionary Zoning”
- Moderator: Andrew Hayashi, University of Virginia School of Law
12:15 p.m.
Lunch
12:30-2 p.m.
Session VII: Race, Land and Inequality
- Colin Gordon, “Piecemeal Democracy: Federalism, Localism, and Political Inequality”
- Brian Highsmith, “Structural Power and Local Democracy in a Fragmented Polity”
- Andrew Kahrl, “The Black Tax: Local Tax Systems and the Reproduction of Racial Inequality”
- Danielle Purifoy, “Free the Land! On Property Law and a Black Sense of Place”
- Moderator: Claudrena Harold, University of Virginia Department of History
2:15-2:45 p.m.
Screening of “Pine Grove: More Than a School”
A short film produced with support from PLACE.