Author's Preface and Acknowledgements

• Author: John R. Nolon
• Pages: 17-19

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Author’s Preface and

Acknowledgements

e idea for this book arose when the Environmental Law Institute (ELI)

proposed that I update four books of mine that it published over the last

dozen years: all with “Ground” in their title. is publishing journey with

ELI began in 2001 with Well Grounded: Using Local Land Use Authority to

Achieve Smart Growth, which celebrated the democratic foundation of local

land use law and the many local land use plans and laws that properly order

growth, while recognizing the jurisdictional limits of the nation’s 40,000

local governments and the fact that many of their zoning ordinances induce

sprawl, rather than smart growth. Well Grounded was to serve as a best prac-

tices manual, helping more localities make proper use of their legal authority

to balance growth and conservation and urging state and federal policymak-

ers to assist.

Two books followed that described municipal eorts to use land use

authority to protect natural resources and environmental functions: Open

Ground: Eective Local Strategies for Protecting Natural Resources and New

Ground: e Advent of Local Environmental Law. ese books demonstrated

how eectively and expansively local governments can protect watersheds,

wetlands, habitats, species, and other natural resources and serve as full part-

ners of state and federal agencies in managing stormwater, limiting surface

and ground water pollution, and controlling many of the adverse eects of

nonpoint source pollution.

e last in the series was Losing Ground: A Nation on Edge, published in

the horric wake of Hurricane Katrina: a book that examined the failed

national legal system that leaves localities ill-served as they sift through the

ruins of natural disasters, managing recovery and planning for the future as

the level of government that is closest to the people and property aected.

All of these books urge lawyers and planners, as well as those who teach

law and planning and their students, to understand the importance of local

land use law in our federal system of laws, and to help create an integrated

approach to environmental protection that fully incorporates the competen-

cies of each level of government.

Rather than update each of these publications, it seemed more prudent

and strategic to integrate all four in a single book, informed by my sub-

sequent publications, which have attempted to dene Sustainable Devel-

opment Law and its enormous potential to mitigate and adapt to climate