Toward Sustainable Communities: Transition and Transformations in Environmental Policy
Daniel A. Mazmanian and Michael E. Kraft
Abstract
This analysis of U.S. environmental policy offers a conceptual framework that serves as a 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 approac ... More
This analysis of U.S. environmental policy offers a conceptual framework that serves as a 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. The book 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.
Keywords:
case studies,
federal regulation,
efficiency-based reform,
sustainable development,
integrated approaches,
subnational level,
regional level,
state level,
air pollution,
water pollution
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2009 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780262134927 |
| Published to MIT Press Scholarship Online: August 2013 |
DOI:10.7551/mitpress/9780262134927.001.0001 |
