Planners Book Club — January 2008

Fair and Healthy Land Use

Fair and Healthy Land Use was the January 2008 selection of APA's Planners Book Club.

In Fair and Healthy Land Use Craig Anthony Arnold, professor at the University of Louisville Louis D. Brandeis School of Law, explains how the principles of environmental justice can be incorporated into planning processes. Professor Arnold suggests the following questions to get your discussion of Fair and Healthy Land Use started:

1. What are the manifestations of environmental injustice in land-use planning, decision making, and practices? What are the manifestations of environmental injustice in your community?

2. What kinds of links can be made between environmental justice policies and smart growth policies? In what ways might smart growth policies need to be adapted or limited to prevent environmental and land-use injustices in low-income and minority communities?

3. Which of the regulatory tools seem most promising to address environmental and land-use injustices in your community? What are the opportunities and obstacles to making effective use of these tools to achieve fair and healthy land-use conditions?

4. What are the best methods for increasing and strengthening the participation of low-income and minority communities in land-use planning and decision making?

5. What are the linkages among public health, community infrastructure development, and environmental and land-use justice?

6. Affordable housing policies and brownfield redevelopment policies are two examples of especially complex, thorny land-use planning (and implementation) issues. How do you perceive the complexities of these policy areas both generally and specifically in your own community? What principles and tools can aid localities, states, and even federal agencies in achieving fair and healthy community conditions with respect to affordable housing and brownfield redevelopment?

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