Professor Richard Schragger’s Scholarship Among Best Environmental Law Articles of the Year

University of Virginia School of Law professor Richard Schragger’s paper “The Attack on American Cities” has been named one of the best environmental law articles of the 2017-18 academic year.

The article was selected for inclusion in the next edition of the Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review, a joint publication of the Environmental Law Institute’s Environmental Law Reporter and Vanderbilt University Law School.

Schragger’s paper was among five chosen out of a pool of hundreds of law journal articles published between August 2017 and July 2018. An advisory committee of law professors, policymakers and students makes the selections.

Published in the Texas Law Review, Schragger’s paper shows how states are often hostile toward cities’ policies and authority, ranging from anti-bias laws and minimum wages to immigration and funding. He also analyzes how anti-urbanism has been a longstanding feature of American federalism and constitutional law.  

“That a paper about cities was included in this year’s honors recognizes that the ‘built’ environment is as important a subject of environmental law as is the ‘natural’ one,” Schragger said. “It also recognizes that environmental law and policy — which has long been preoccupied with federal statutes and regulations — is also appropriately concerned with local law.” 

Schragger, who joined the UVA Law faculty in 2001, is the Perre Bowen Professor of Law and Joseph C. Carter, Jr. Research Professor of Law. His scholarship focuses on the intersection of constitutional law and local government law, federalism, urban policy and the constitutional and economic status of cities. Schragger has published in the Harvard, Yale, Chicago, Virginia, and Michigan law reviews, among others. He is the author of “City Power: Urban Governance in a Global Age,” published by Oxford University Press in 2016.

In conjunction with the annual publication, the Environmental Law Institute and Vanderbilt will co-host a conference in Washington, D.C., in spring that will bring together some of the authors and commenters for an audience of practitioners and policymakers.

UVA Law faculty have been featured in the review before. “Rethinking Health-Based Environmental Standards,” co-authored by Professor Michael Livermore and Professor Richard Revesz of the New York University School of Law, was selected for publication in 2015.