Toward Sustainable Communities: Transition and Transformations in Environmental Policy (American and Comparative Environmental Policy) - Hardcover

"A further improvement of an already excellent book. The authors make several particularly significant contributions to the study of America's sustainable growth movement: they place the evolution of sustainability policies within a coherent historical and conceptual context accessible to lay readers and specialists; they illuminate the nation's subnational governments as 'the policy and idea incubators of the nation' in sustainability policymaking; and their analysis nicely combines discussion and evaluation of substantive policy and conceptual issues. The updated, expanded coverage of subnational sustainability policies is supplemented by a very useful, enlarged discussion of important policy research questions posed by the book. Not least important, the book's lucid and cogent style makes it an excellent teaching resource." --Walter A. Rosenbaum, Interim Director, Bob Graham Center for Public Service, University of Florida

This analysis of U.S. environmental policy offers a conceptual framework that serves as a valuable roadmap to the array of laws, programs, and approaches developed over the last four decades. Combining case studies and theoretical discussion, the book views environmental policy in the context of three epochs: the rise of command-and-control federal regulation in the 1970s, the period of efficiency-based reform efforts that followed, and the more recent trend toward sustainable development and integrated approaches at local and regional levels. It assesses the strengths and weaknesses of the new approaches and places these experiments within the larger framework of an emerging trend toward community sustainability. Toward Sustainable Communities assesses environmental policy successes and failures at the subnational, regional, and state levels and offers eight case studies of policy arenas in which transformations have been occurring -- from air and water pollution control and state and local climate change policy to open space preservation, urban growth, and regional ecosystem management. It discusses the various meanings of sustainability and whether the concept can serve as a foundation for a new era of environmental policy. The second edition has been substantially updated, with five new chapters (including the chapter on climate change) and all other chapters revised and shortened. It is suitable as a primary or secondary text for environmental policy courses and as a resource for scholars and policymakers. Contributors: Elisa Barbour, Michele M. Betsill, Daniel J. Fiorino, Marc Gaden, Lamont C. Hempel, Michael E. Kraft, William D. Leach, Mark Lubell, Daniel A. Mazmanian, Nicole Nakagawa, Kent E. Portney, Daniel Press, Paul A. Sabatier, Barry G. Rabe, Michael B. Teitz