Toward Sustainable Communities

reviewed by Deborah R. Slon

Have cornerstone environmental laws of this nation become relics of the past? Have the adversarial, command-and-control policies of the 1970s been replaced by greater collaboration among stakeholders seeking a common vision of sustainability?

Toward Sustainable Communities: Transition and Transformations in Environmental Policy theorizes that the era of federal environmental regulation is fading, to be replaced with a more adaptive, dynamic approach for addressing clean water, clean air, climate change, open space, and other key issues.

The book offers an original and intriguing analysis of the evolution of environmental law from the 1970s to the present. According to editors Daniel A. Mazmanian and Michael E. Kraft, approaches to environmental law and policy can be divided into three distinct epochs. The first epoch encompassed aggressive, centralized federal regulation; the second epoch was marked by market-driven incentives that emphasized flexibility and reform; and the third is characterized by collaborative efforts by stakeholders to achieve sustainable development. While acknowledging that the first epoch served important purposes, the editors advocate moving away from the regulatory approach, and toward the incentives and collaboration of epochs two and three.

Toward Sustainable Communities then examines the policy progression from epoch to epoch through a series of case studies. Each written by a different environmental scholar, these case studies are particularly helpful in demonstrating the nuances and complexities of environmental law. Indeed, many of the case studies tend to undermine the premise of the book, arguing that neatly dividing the development of environmental law into distinct epochs is virtually impossible.

One scholar examining water law in Wisconsin notes that collaboration may work best at the early stages of the process, such as when identifying potential problems, or alternative approaches, and selecting tools. It may be less suitable for implementing a policy, which requires sufficient government authority. Other contributors laud the promise of innovative processes stemming from collaborative approaches but also recognize that governmental mandates may be needed to accomplish less politically palatable goals, and that market incentives may be too weak to effect sufficient change. Interestingly, as one study notes, many other areas of public policy?such as homeland security, education, and health care?have actually moved toward greater federal centralization, so the decentralization of environmental policies may not be inevitable.

This book offers an insightful look into different environmental policy experiments, and their resulting successes and failures. The synthesis of various approaches provides a good overview of the evolution of environmental law. The vivid, well-written case studies are easy to read and thought provoking. (There are also plenty of examples from California.) Overall, though the three-epoch hypothesis may seem a bit simplistic, the case studies manage to illustrate the real challenges facing local, state, and regional jurisdictions in developing and enforcing environmental policy.

Deborah R. Slon is a deputy attorney general with the environment section of the California Department of Justice in Oakland

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