Local Law

Research correlating stringency in land-use regulation to low housing supply, high housing costs, and segregation relies on surveys of planners about...

Cities have been largely absent from the theory and legal doctrine of federalism, especially in the United States, where federalism is understood to...

Income inequality is a national preoccupation, and the public’s imagination is captured by the astronomical incomes of Valley tech billionaires and...

On Aug. 14, a Montana district court released a groundbreaking decision for climate change activists. In Held v. Montana, the court announced that...

The 1968 Fair Housing Act required local government recipients of federal money to take meaningful actions to affirmatively further fair housing (AFFH...

Rural America, as has been well documented, faces many challenges. Businesses and people are migrating to more urban and suburban regions. The...

California’s legislature has passed several laws that intervene in local land-use regulation in order to increase desperately needed housing...

The issue of state separation of powers generally is not one that the federal courts have had much occasion to address. Recent issues have arisen...

A key question in the academic and policy debates over the optimal architecture for sovereign debt has long been whether sovereigns should be given...

Observers of metropolitan dysfunction have long advocated for a regional tier of government that could (among other things) equalize spending across...

Studies of federalism, especially in the United States, have mostly centered on state autonomy and the vertical relationship between the states and...

Gun-related violence and suicide in the United States are serious public health problems that are concentrated among young adults, especially those...

Land use regulation that constrains housing production risks social, economic, and environmental harm. California attempts to avoid these harms by...

Cities have been largely absent from the theory and doctrine of federalism, especially in the US, where federalism discourse is invariably preoccupied...

This Article is an explanation and defense of the National League of Cities’ (NLC) Principles of Home Rule for the Twenty-First Century, which the...

Gov. Greg Abbott’s order isn’t just cruel — it also runs counter to basic legal principles In recent months, politicians in many states have...

The Perils of Land Use Deregulation, my intervention in the land use/housing debate, has now been published by the University of Pennsylvania Law...

Virginia remains one of a minority of states that does not constitutionally enshrine some form of home rule for its cities or other local governments...