Urban Affairs Books

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Preserving the Vanishing City: Historic Preservation amid Urban Decline in Cleveland, Ohio

Stephanie Ryberg Webster

Preserving the Vanishing City considers the unique challenges, conditions, and opportunities facing Cleveland’s historic preservation community during the 1970s and 1980s. While pro-preservationists argued for the economic and revitalization benefits stemming from saving and repurposing older buildings, population loss and economic contraction prompted decades of deterioration, underinvestment, vacancy, and abandonment.

Stephanie Ryberg-Webster uncovers the motivations, strategies, and constraints driving Cleveland’s historic preservation sector, led by the public-sector Cleveland Landmarks Commission, nonprofit Cleveland Restoration Society, and a cadre of advocates. She sheds light on the ways in which preservationists confronted severe, escalating, and sustained urban decline, which plagued Cleveland, a prototypical rust-belt industrial city.

Preserving the Vanishing City chronicles the rise of the historic preservation profession in Cleveland and provides six case studies about targeted projects and neighborhood efforts, including industrial heritage, housing preservation and restoration, commercial district revitalization, securing local historic district designations, as well as grassroots organizing, coalition building, and partnerships. Ryberg-Webster also addresses the complexities of historic preservation within the context of rapid racial change in Cleveland’s neighborhoods.

A comprehensive history of preservation within the context of one city’s urban decline, Preserving the Vanishing City recounts the successes, failures, and creative strategies employed to save Cleveland’s built environment.
The Way We Are: 100 Plain Dealer Op-Eds

Thomas Bier

The book contains 100 op-ed articles submitted by Thomas Bier to the Plain Dealer and published between 1977 and 2022. Most of the articles concern a current event or issue in the city of Cleveland and/or communities in Northeast Ohio. 100 articles involve 100 topics, varying from local history, to the effect of public policy on communities, to where to locate a new baseball stadium.
Municipal Fiscal Stress, Bankruptcies, and Other Financial Emergencies

Tatyana Guzman and Natalia Ermasova

It is difficult to find someone who has not heard about the Puerto Rico, Detroit, Michigan, or Orange County, California, bankruptcies. While guides for responsibly managing government finances exist, problems often originate not because of poor financial reporting or financial deficiencies but because issues external to financial wellbeing arise, such as economic, demographic, political, legal, or even environmental factors. Exacerbating the problem, there is not much advice in the existing literature on how to act when municipalities face financial struggles. Filling this important gap, this book explores fiscal health and fiscal hardships, municipal defaults and bankruptcies, and many other aspects to help guide local governments during fiscal distress.

Fiscal hardships negatively affect the quality and availability of public goods and services and, consequently, the wellbeing of residents and businesses living and working in distressed municipalities. Turned off streetlights, unmaintained public parks, potholes, inconsistent garbage pickup, longer response time from emergency services, and multiple other issues that residents of the struggling municipalities deal with, lead to higher crime rates, lower quality of K-12 education, dangerous road conditions, lower housing values, outmigration of wealthier population, and numerous other problems. The COVID-19 pandemic put additional unprecedented pressure on municipal finances nationwide.

In this book authors Tatyana Guzman and Natalia Ermasova evaluate distressed cities and municipalities and provide practical recommendations on improving their financial conditions. What are conditions and signs to look for to not to find yourself in similar situations? What can be done if your municipality is already experiencing fiscal hardships? What are the consequences of fiscal misfortunes? How does one exit a fiscal emergency? This book answers these and other questions and serves as a guide to fiscal health and prosperity for U.S. municipal governments, students and researchers in public finance, and general public management fields.

Book description provided by publisher
https://www.routledge.com/Municipal-Fiscal-Stress-Bankruptcies-and-Other-Financial-Emergencies/Guzman-Ermasova/p/book/9781032349381
Cleveland and the Civil War

W Dennis Keating

Although removed from the frontlines, Cleveland played an active role in national events before, during and after the Civil War. President Lincoln visited this abolitionist hotbed after his 1860 election. Following the president’s assassination five years later, his funeral train made a stop here. Cleveland and Cuyahoga County sent more than 9,000 troops to war. More than 1,700 never returned. Born just outside Cleveland, James Garfield emerged from the war to become president of the United States. Most vitally, the economic prosperity of the war years began the transformation of this small but thriving village into a future manufacturing powerhouse. Author W. Dennis Keating, member and past president of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable, creates a panoramic view of the city through one of the nation’s most troubled times.
Redistricting: A Guide for the GIS Community

Mark J. Salling PhD, GISP and Blake Esselstyn GISP

It is hoped that this guide encourages the GIS practitioner to participate in the process when possible, and it offers guidance in identifying how to do that. This guide will also be helpful to those involved in redistricting as employees of state legislatures, local governments, redistricting commissions, political parties, consulting firms, or nonprofit voting rights organizations. But other GIS experts can also contribute their skills and time either as volunteers for groups seeking to monitor and evaluate the work of the organizations charged with producing final redistricting plans for state or local communities or as independent citizens with ideas about what fair election districts should look like.

Learn more about this book:
https://www.urisa.org/redistricting-guide
Strategies and Techniques for Teaching Environmental Law

Heidi Gorovitz Robertson

Teaching law students is an enormous privilege and an immense responsibility. Teaching Environmental Law, in particular, gives the professor an opportunity to help future lawyers understand some important lessons. First, contrary to the belief of many first-year law students, the legal system is not made up entirely of courts. It’s not all judicial and it’s not all adversarial. The statutes Congress creates need implementation and that’s the role of agencies. Lawyers can do a world of good by working in and around legislatures and agencies and with the people who staff them. Environmental lawyers can help shape legislation, the resulting regulations, and the agencies that implement them, if they understand how they work. Environmental law, and all law really, is a complex mesh of politics, policy, and economic tensions. Students will do well to pay close attention to each of those as they learn to navigate the world of law practice. Problem-solving is hard in this context. It’s hard even to prioritize problems, let alone solutions. Still, it’s worth it. And you get to be their guide. Enjoy the ride responsibly.
Development Studies in Regional Science

Zhenhua Chen, William M. Bowen, and Dale Whittington

This book examines major policy and planning issues in development studies from the regional science perspective. It investigates questions such as: “How are communities able to deal with uncertainties raised by conflicts, technology, and external shocks in the process of development?”; “How can nations achieve sustainable development in terms of resource allocation and management?”; and “How can developing countries improve their economic competitiveness while maintaining the objectives of equitable and coordinated growth among different regions?” using case studies that focus on different subfields, like infrastructure, environment, data science, sustainability and resilience. The book is organized in three parts. Part I clarifies fundamental issues regarding development studies and regional science in general, while Part II includes several case studies that address development-related opportunities and challenges with a focus on Asian countries. Lastly, Part III offers a global perspective and explores development experiences from countries throughout the world. Featuring contributions by leading academics and practitioners working at various organizations linked to international development, and including multidisciplinary analyses, the book appeals to students who are interested in development studies and regional science. It also offers planners and policymakers fresh insights into regional economic development.
The Evolution of Local Dealerships: The Backbone of the U.S. Automobile Industry

Richard Klein

The numerous business contributions made by some of the major Cleveland, OH auto dealerships over the past 130-years will be recognized in this book and how their innovative approaches towards both marketing and selling vehicles influenced the automotive industry over that same period.
Legacy Cities: Continuity and Change amid Decline and Revival

J. Rosie Tighe and Stephanie Ryberg Webster

Legacy cities, also commonly referred to as shrinking, or post-industrial cities, are places that have experienced sustained population loss and economic contraction. In the United States, legacy cities are those that are largely within the Rust Belt that thrived during the first half of the 20th century. In the second half of the century, these cities declined in economic power and population leaving a legacy of housing stock, warehouse districts, and infrastructure that is ripe for revitalization. This volume explores not only the commonalities across legacy cities in terms of industrial heritage and population decline, but also their differences. Legacy Cities poses the questions: What are the legacies of legacy cities? How do these legacies drive contemporary urban policy, planning and decision-making? And, what are the prospects for the future of these cities? Contributors primarily focus on Cleveland, Ohio, but all Rust Belt cities are discussed.
The Legacy of the Pharmacy Industry: Cleveland, Ohio

Richard Klein

This book recognizes the many business contributions made by the major Cleveland, Ohio-based drugstore chains over the past two hundred years and how their highly resourceful approaches towards marketing and retailing affected the national pharmacy industry over that same period of time.
Housing Dynamics in Northeast Ohio: Setting the Stage for Resurgence

Thomas E. Bier

The book presents an overview of regional housing dynamics and consequent impacts in Northeast Ohio since the 1940s. Focus is on the city of Cleveland and its host county. Dynamics are examined in terms of supply and demand, population movement, lifespan of buildings, and the influence of government on the choices people have when considering where to live. Impacts include housing decline and abandonment, change in property value, and urban sprawl. Recommendations, centered on tax-base growth sharing, are presented for altering existing dynamics to support Northeast Ohio’s resurgence.
Retired, Rehabbed, Reborn: The Adaptive Reuse of America’s Derelict Religious Buildings and Schools

Robert A. Simons, Gary DeWine, and Larry Ledebur

Each year in the United States, hundreds of religious buildings and schools become vacant or underutilized as congregations and populations merge, move or diminish. These structures are often well located, attractive, eligible for tax credits, and available for redevelopment. In a practical and innovative handbook, authors Robert Simons, Gary DeWine, and Larry Ledebur have compiled a step-by-step guide for finding sustainable new uses for vacant structures. The reuse of these buildings offers those charged with revitalizing them an opportunity to capture their embodied energy, preserve local beloved landmarks, and boost sustainability. Rehabbing also allows developers to recoup some value from these assets, while neighbors and other stakeholders enjoy benefits as the historic structures are retained and the urban fabric of communities is preserved. Retired, Rehabbed, Reborn features 10 in-depth case studies of adaptive reuse outcomes for religious buildings and public schools that have achieved varying degrees of success. Several case vignettes appear within various chapters to illustrate specific points. The book is a useful tool for architects, planners, developers, and others interested in reusing these important structures.
The Social Enterprise Zoo: A Guide for Perplexed Scholars, Entrepreneurs, Philanthropists, Leaders, Investors and Policymakers

Dennis R. Young, Elizabeth A. M. Searing, and Cassady V. Brewer

The Social Enterprise Zoo employs the metaphor of the zoo to gain a more comprehensive understanding of social enterprise – especially the diversity of its forms; the various ways it is organized in different socio-political environments; how different forms of enterprise behave, interact, and thrive; and what lessons can be drawn for the future development and study of organizations that seek to balance social or environmental impact with economic success. Recommended for students, researchers, policymakers, entrepreneurs and managers of social purpose organizations. (Abstract from publisher.)
Using Social Marketing for Public Emergency Preparedness: Social Change for Community Resilience

Nancy Meyer-Emerick

Less than half of the public in the U.S. have taken the three steps to prepare for emergencies that are recommended by FEMA and the Red Cross: having a 3-day emergency kit, a family communication plan, and knowing where to get information during an emergency. Although emergency managers attempt to train the public, often they are only able to distribute brochures and make public notifications. For a variety of reasons, the public frequently ignores this guidance, leaving people more vulnerable during emergencies.

This book applies the process of social marketing, which has been used widely in public health and other disciplines, to the lack of public preparedness. Written for emergency managers in government and non-profit agencies, students, and volunteers, the book provides enough background and resources to enable the user to carry out an effective emergency preparedness campaign in their community and maintain it over time. Unlike preparing one message for everyone, social marketing involves working with smaller communities to identify what and how people want to learn, training them, and then maintaining that relationship to insure their preparedness. Because most emergency management agencies lack resources to take on such an initiative, the book provides readers with low cost methods to begin a social marketing program.
End of Academic Freedom: The Coming Obliteration of the Core Purpose of the University

William M. Bowen, Michael Schwartz, and Lisa Camp

This book is premised upon the assumption that the core purpose of universities is to create, preserve, transmit, validate, and find new applications for knowledge. It is written in the perspective of critical university studies, in which university governance processes should take ideas and discourse about ideas seriously, far more seriously than they are often taken within many of to day's universities, since doing so is the key to achieving this purpose. Specifically, we assert that the best way for universities to take ideas seriously, and so to best achieve their purpose, is to consciously recognize and conserve the entire range of available ideas. Though the current emphasis upon factors such as student headcounts, increased efficiency and job creation are undoubtedly important, far more is at stake in universities than only these factors.

From this premise, we deduce insights and arguments about academic freedom, as well as factors such control and monitoring of the market place of ideas, the structure of information flows within universities, the role of language in university governance, and relationships between administrators, faculty members and students. We identify impediments to achieving the core purpose of universities, including the idea vetting systems of authoritarianism, corporatism, illiberalism, supernaturalism and political correctness. We elucidate how these impediments inhibit successful achievement of the core purpose of the university. In response to these impediments we prescribe relatively autonomous universities characterized by openness, transparency, dissent, and the maintenance of balance between conflicting perspectives, values, and interests
The Road Through the Rust Belt: From Preeminence to Decline to Prosperity

William M. Bowen

By now the story is familiar: A once-booming midwestern city whose growth was fueled by manufacturing is now struggling with a lack of jobs, declining population, abandoned properties, creaky infrastructure, and desperate finances. Inhabitants often flee to areas offering economic opportunity and better schools. Yet others stay, seeking and often finding entrepreneurial opportunities that help restore lost prosperity.

This is the subject of The Road through the Rust Belt: From Preeminence to Decline to Prosperity, William M. Bowen, editor, a book that addresses many of the common reasons why these cities suffered decline and the many solutions proposed and efforts already undertaken that seek to reverse the decline and spur rejuvenation.

The contributors, each associated with the Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University, discuss the reasons for the decline of Rust Belt cities, including globalization, energy policy–related issues, and even the impact of air conditioning on location decisions. They also detail many of the entrepreneurial efforts undertaken in cities like Cleveland that are helping to reinvigorate once-depressed areas, offer suggestions related to investments in workforce training and current energy policy, critique the use of economic development subsidies, discuss the success of clusters at reviving old industrial cities, and provide cultural insights on business practices in China.

Overall, this book does not offer a one-size-fits-all solution to the economic woes still facing many of the depressed Rust Belt cities; rather, it offers a multitude of ideas that could be used to stimulate entrepreneurship and generate prosperity.
The Affordable Housing Reader

Elizabeth Mueller and J. Rosie Tighe

The Affordable Housing Reader brings together classic works and contemporary writing on the themes and debates that have animated the field of affordable housing policy as well as the challenges in achieving the goals of policy on the ground. The Reader – aimed at professors, students, and researchers – provides an overview of the literature on housing policy and planning that is both comprehensive and interdisciplinary. It is particularly suited for graduate and undergraduate courses on housing policy offered to students of public policy and city planning.

The Reader is structured around the key debates in affordable housing, ranging from the conflicting motivations for housing policy, through analysis of the causes of and solutions to housing problems, to concerns about gentrification and housing and race. Each debate is contextualized in an introductory essay by the editors, and illustrated with a range of texts and articles.

Elizabeth Mueller and Rosie Tighe have brought together for the first time into a single volume the best and most influential writings on housing and its importance for planners and policy-makers.
Urban Planning For Dummies

Jordan Yin and W. Paul Farmer

With the majority of the world's population shifting to urban centres, urban planning—the practice of land-use and transportation planning to help shape cities structurally, economically, and socially—has become an increasingly vital profession. In Urban Planning For Dummies, readers will get a practical overview of this fascinating field, including studying community demographics, determining the best uses for land, planning economic and transportation development, and implementing plans. Following an introductory course on urban planning, this book is key reading for any urban planning student or anyone involved in urban development.

With new studies conclusively demonstrating the dramatic impact of urban design on public psychological and physical health, the impact of the urban planner on a community is immense. And with a wide range of positions for urban planners in the public, nonprofit, and private sectors—including law firms, utility companies, and real estate development firms—having a fundamental understanding of urban planning is key to anyone even considering entry into this field. This book provides a useful introduction and lays the groundwork for serious study.
Federal Land Use Law and Litigation

Alan Weinstein

Federal Land Use Law and Litigation examines all federal, constitutional, and statutory limitations on local land use controls, discussing cases, regulations, defense strategies, doctrines, and antitrust restrictions. It comprehensively reviews Supreme Court and lower federal court decisions that consider the constitutionality of land use regulations and discusses complicated free speech issues affected by federal land use law and municipalities exercising home-rule powers.
Framing Matters: Perspectives on Negotiation Research and Practice in Communication

W. Donohue, Randall G. Rogan, and Sanda Kaufman

The framing metaphor is commonly used in negotiation and communication research to characterize how individuals place interpretive and linguistic boundaries around phenomena, objects, or events. This book develops this construct, exploring its potential to provide research insights, and illustrating new strategies for further development. Divided into three sections, the book first captures the breadth of the theoretical framing construct, then focuses on the many ways in which the construct has been researched and applied. The final section reflects on the constructs potential, and its value in understanding negotiation. An inspiring group of contributors all experts in framing theory and conflict/negotiation management outline how the framing construct is viewed theoretically by research scholars, and in the field by conflict resolution practitioners.
Housing and Community Development: Cases and Materials

W Dennis Keating

The fourth edition of Housing and Community Development presents a fresh and comprehensive look at housing law and policy with full coverage of the foreclosure crisis and its aftermath, exploring housing policies and neighborhood revitalization policies to address the new urban reality. It also discusses the issue of sustainability and the relationship between community development, housing, and climate change. The book contains materials covering housing policy and litigation; tenants' rights in the private and public spheres; urban redevelopment, including a comprehensive look at Kelo v. New London, including its setting and aftermath; and a completely revised section of the book on neighborhood revitalization and investment. The materials on fair housing and discrimination reflect many recent debates, including school desegregation, affirmative action, subprime and other variations of predatory lending, and other issues touching on race, class, disability, and familial bias. The materials are being published at the perfect time to debate the exciting current urban, suburban, and rural issues of housing, transportation, and community development.
Housing and Community Development: Cases and Materials. 4th ed.

WM Dennis Keating, James A. Kushner, Charles E. Daye, Peter W. Salsich Jr, Henry W. McGee Jr, Barbara L. Bezdek, Otto J. Hetzel, Daniel R. Mandelker, and Robert M. Washburn

The fourth edition of Housing and Community Development presents a fresh and comprehensive look at housing law and policy with full coverage of the foreclosure crisis and its aftermath, exploring housing policies and neighborhood revitalization policies to address the new urban reality. It also discusses the issue of sustainability and the relationship between community development, housing, and climate change. The book contains materials covering housing policy and litigation; tenants' rights in the private and public spheres; urban redevelopment, including a comprehensive look at Kelo v. New London, including its setting and aftermath; and a completely revised section of the book on neighborhood revitalization and investment. The materials on fair housing and discrimination reflect many recent debates, including school desegregation, affirmative action, subprime and other variations of predatory lending, and other issues touching on race, class, disability, and familial bias.
Racial Profiling: Causes & Consequences

Ronnie A. Dunn and Wornie Reed

Racial profiling is a phenomenon that has been around for many years…

As of 2007, there had been over 200 court cases involving allegations of racial and ethnic profiling against law enforcement agencies in the United States. Consequently, it is an issue of significant concern.While racial profiling can affect many aspects of the lives of minorities, including Arab and Muslim Americans, Racial Profiling: Causes and Consequencesfocuses on the "driving while black" (DWB) phenomenon. Among the most frequently occurring incidences of racial profiling is traffic stops—for minor traffic violations, which often result in vehicle searches for contraband. That is the focus of this book, which includes several studies of traffic stops and assesses traffic stops from several perspectives.
Brief History of Religion in Northeast Ohio, A

George W. Knepper

This monograph presents a concise but comprehensive look at the history of religion in Northeast Ohio. Starting with the early settlers from New England, Professor Knepper traces the increasingly diverse mixture of faiths that now characterize the life of the sacred in Northeast Ohio. In doing this, Professor Knepper is drawing on a lifetime of study into Ohio's history. Original publication date 2002.
From Ark to Art : The 20-year Journey of the Civic, Cleveland Heights, Ohio, from Jewish Temple to Multi-purpose Community Facility

John J. Boyle III

The Civic is a former Jewish temple located in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, an inner-ring suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. The building was close to being abandoned and possibly torn down after its former congregation built a new facility farther out in the suburbs. This study describes how a former temple came to serve the community in a new and different way in the secular world. This study will chronicle the Civic as a historical building; describe the efforts to remake it into a multi-purpose building that is a community asset; and serve as a model to other communities interested in adapting houses of worship to secular purposes. While other government regulations, the basic tools are the same everywhere. there are differences between states in terms of the details of this kind of preservation work, such as tax codes and to provide the capital necessary to perform the retrofit. People responsible for the stewardship of older buildings that must be extensively retrofitted, as the Civic was, find it almost impossible to generate enough revenue to both sustain the operations of the building. Original publication date 2000.