Finding the Blight That\u27s Right for California Redevelopment Law

This Article makes the case for liberalizing California\u27s restrictive definition of blight, contending that no concept of blight can capture the salient costs and benefits of redevelopment. Present definitions of blight are failing to protect schools and counties from the fiscal drain resulting from the widespread use of tax increment financing to support redevelopment. Definitions of blight are also tangential to the underlying policy debate over whether local governments should take an active hand in shaping the urban environment by becoming land developers. This Article examines two recent cases striking down redevelopment projects for not meeting California\u27s stringent blight standards enacted in 1993, and questions whether those decisions, though appropriate interpretations of the statute, resulted in sound urban policy. In the end, Professor Lefcoe recommends that the blight statute should be re-formulated and local governments allowed to use redevelopment to achieve a broad array of state mandated planning goals

‘Test Driving’ a Financing Instrument for Climate Adaptation: Analyzing Institutional Dilemmas using Simulation Gaming

Urban physical public infrastructure is a frontline defense mechanism to manage and mitigate climate-related impacts. Market instruments are often cited as possible means to spread risk and reduce financial burdens on the public sector. The authors argue that existing research tends to focus on the technical issues of instruments and neglects considering institutional dynamics that may enable or constrain local market-based financing mechanisms. In this article, three core dilemmas (values uncertainty, planning horizon, and indirect benefits) are used to analyze the responses of practitioners to a possible financing instrument. The findings indicate that the practitioner’s responses to tax increment financing were largely shaped by the adaptation dilemmas and not the characteristics of the instrument per se. By mapping the dilemmas onto whether they would recommend it, participants imposed a financial barrier on climate adaptation investments. The authors conclude that a key imperative in the design of policy instruments is to pay attention to the congruency of informal institutions at the ‘street level’ in order to be in-step with the current sociopolitical conditions. The findings also point to four key attributes that a local market-based instrument would need to be aligned and responsive to the Dutch planning and development context