NAFTA\u27s Investment Protections and the Division of Authority for Land Use and Environmental Controls

This paper discusses the way investor protections in international trade agreements may affect the division of power over environmental and land use regulation among federal, state, and local governments in the United States. It explores how national governments could pass the costs of takings compensation required by such investor protections on to the local and state governments, and analyzes other responses a national government might have to compensation awards. Professor Been predicts that domestic property owners will use investor protections in international trade agreements to argue for more expansive takings protections under the Fifth Amendment. Professor Been concludes with a call for policy-makers to consider more carefully the effects investor protections in free trade agreements may have on the division of responsibility for environmental and land use regulation among federal, state, and local governments

Analyzing Evidence of Environmental Justice

This article was adapted from a talk given for the Florida State University Journal of Land Use & Environmental Law Distinguished Lecture Series in October 1995. The research discussed in this article was funded in part by the Environmental Protection Agency, pursuant to Grant Number R821299-01-1. Financial assistance also was generously provided by the Filomen D\u27Agostino and Max E. Greenberg Research Fund at New York University School of Law. The research was conducted by Professor Been and Frances Gupta, Ph.D. Candidate, New York University Department of Economics. They would like to thank Douglas Anderton, Benjamin Goldman, Lewis Kornhauser, Richard Revesz, Michael Schill, the participants of the New York University Brown Bag lunch series and the Harvard Law School faculty workshop, and members of the seminar on environmental justice that Professor Been taught at Harvard Law School in the fall of 1995 for comments on earlier drafts. They also would like to thank Sheri Rabiner, New York University School of Law, Class of 1996, whose tireless efforts to ensure that the data used for the study was accurate were essential to the project. Jacob Hollinger, Dean Newton, and Aaron McGrath also helped to improve the quality of the data

Challenges Facing Housing Markets in the Next Decade, Developing a Policy-Relevant Research Agenda

Outlines research questions in the areas of: the impact of the housing market crisis; rising poverty and income inequality and volatility; concentration of poor and minority households in distressed areas; and need for sustainable housing and communities

Building Environmentally Sustainable Communities: A Framework for Inclusivity

Reviews literature on past inequitable and unsustainable urban development and visions for linking sustainability, opportunity, and inclusion. Analyzes possible metrics for measuring sustainability and access as well as next steps for policy