The New York Court of Appeals case Golden v. Planning Board of Town of
Ramapo (1972) resulted in an important decision in what area?
a. Exclusionary housing
b. Growth management
c. “Takings” claims
d. Environmental justice – ANSWER B. Ramapo, NY established a growth
management system that awarded points to development proposals based on the
availability of public utilities, drainage facilities, parks, road access, and
firehouses.
- The Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 required local governments to address
potential hazards in a Hazard Mitigation Plan in order to remain eligible to
receive certain federal funds before and following federally-declared disasters.
Your community has integrated such a plan into the General Plan. Now the Safety
Element of the General Plan is expanded to cover the following: I. Natural hazards
II. Man-made hazards III. Fiscal responsibility for disasters IV. A development
retreat from low-lying coastal areas
a. II & III
b. I, II, & IV
c. I & IV
d. I, II, III, & IV – ANSWER B. FEMA HMA of 2000 seeks to expand
pre-disaster planning to precipitate the widespread loss of life, damage to
property, infrastructure and the environment. The Act does not assign any fiscal
responsibilities of disasters to any entity. Most local Safety Element covers also
man-made hazards. However, local jurisdictions are not burdened with the fiscal
impact associated with disasters. - In the United States, the “Neighborhood Unit” concept is attributed to:
a. Kevin Lynch
b. Clarence Perry
c. Ian McHarg
d. Lewis Mumford – ANSWER B. Clarence Perry lived in Forest Hills Gardens
in Queens, NY and published an essay on the concept of the neighborhood unit in - Forest Hill Gardens, developed by Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. in 1911, inspired
the neighborhood unit concept. Perry defined a neighborhood as a self-contained
area within a 5-minute walking radius, bounded by major streets with shops at the
intersections and a school in the middle. Kevin Lynch wrote Image of the City in - Ian McHarg wrote Design with Nature in 1969. Lewis Mumford wrote Culture
of Cities in 1929. - Which of the following court cases is/are concerned with takings? I. Nollan v.
California Coastal Commission (1987) II. Associated Homebuilders v. City of
Livermore (1976) III. First English Evangelical Lutheran Church v. County of Los
Angeles (1987) IV. Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council (1992)
a. I only
b. I & II
c. I & III
d. I, III, & IV – ANSWER D. In Nollan v. California Coastal Commission (1987),
the state claimed that the Nollan’s proposed house would interfere with visual and
psychological access to the public beach. The state said that the Nollan’s would be
granted a building permit only if they allowed public access to the beach. The
court said this was a taking because if the state wanted to provide access to the
beach it should use the power of eminent domain and compensate the land
owners. In First English (1987), a church had not been allowed to use its property
temporarily because it had been flooded; the court said that the city must provide
compensation for this taking, even though it was only temporary. In Lucas, the
court found that a South Carolina state law which prohibited Lucas from building
on two lots on a barrier island was a taking because it deprived Lucas of all
economically viable use of the property. The Associated Homebuilders v. City of
Livermore (1976) case was about growth management. In that case, the court said it
was permissible to phase growth to allow for relief of overcrowded schools and
sewer treatment facilities and to increase water reserves. - Ebenezer Howard is best known for promoting self-sufficient towns with mixed
economies known as:
a. New towns
b. Planned unit developments
c. Garden cities
d. Suburbs – ANSWER C. Ebenezer Howard, (1850-1920) published Tomorrow:
A Peaceful Path to Real Reform in 1898; it was reissued as Garden Cities of
Tomorrow in 1902. A garden city included about 6,000 acres of land and was
surrounded with a rural belt. The first garden cities were in England: Letchworth
in 1903 and Welwyn Garden in 1919. New Towns are a successor to garden cities.
The New Towns of Columbia, MD and Reston, VA were built in the United States
after World War II. A Planned Unit Development or PUD is planned and developed
as a single entity containing residential and non-residential development such as
public, commercial or industrial areas. PUDs allow for greater flexibility in
locating buildings, combining land uses, and including open space than
traditional development patterns. Suburban developments are located on the
periphery of urban areas and are not associated with Ebenezer Howard. Riverside,
IL is considered the earliest example of suburban development. Riverside is
located outside of Chicago and was developed in 1868 by Frederick Law Olmsted,
Sr. - Which of the following is a landmark housing case?
a. Hadacheck v. Sebastian (1915)
b. Berman v. Parker (1954):
c. Southern Burlington NAACP v. Township of Mt. Laurel (1975)
d. Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co. (1926) – ANSWER C. Southern
Burlington NAACP v. Township of Mt. Laurel came before the New Jersey Supreme
Court. In the 1975 decision, the court required that a township provide the
opportunity for low-income housing development through the zoning ordinance.
A second case, known as Mount Laurel II, came before the court in 1983; this time,
the courts instructed townships to provide their fair share of low-income housing,
which led the New Jersey legislature to pass the Fair Housing Act in 1985.
Hadacheck v. Sebastian considered whether some restrictions on activities in a
brickyard in Los Angeles constituted a taking; the Supreme Court ruled that the
restrictions did not constitute a taking. Berman v. Parker considered the ability
and scope of the government to take and transfer private property to private
developers as part of a project to clear blight from an entire area. In Euclid v
Ambler, Alfred Bettman argued that it was right for government to use zoning to
restrict the use of private land to protect the integrity of a residential
neighborhood; the Supreme Court agreed and zoning regulations were upheld. - Cities in the U.S. were densely settled in the late nineteenth and very early
twentieth centuries. Each of the following is a consequence of this high density
development EXCEPT:
a. Threat of communicable diseases
b. Great traffic congestion
c. Reform-mindedness
d. Federal aid programs for cities – ANSWER D. Large scale federal aid
programs did not begin until the 1930s and were implemented to spur recovery
from the Great Depression. In 1900, population density in Manhattan averaged
100,000 people per square mile. Although there were few automobiles, this
nevertheless led to congested streets. By 1990, it averaged 68,000 people per
square mile. Note that Frederick Law Olmsted thought that planning was to be
judged by the extent to which it reduced disease; thus he favored sunlight, good
air circulation and open space. The crowding and haphazard development of many
nineteenth century cities gave rise to a series of reform movements, the most
significant being the sanitation and housing reform movements. - In his 1991 book Edge City: Life on the New Frontier, Joel Garreau defined an
edge city as:
a. being within 2 miles of another city
b. having a population of at least 100,000
c. a place that was nothing like a city as recently as 30 years ago
d. being adjacent to a city with a population of 1 million – ANSWER C. An
edge city is also described as a form of urban center which contains jobs, housing,
shopping, entertainment, and office space and in a spread out form. These cities
are built at the “automobile scale” rather than the human scale and usually have at
least 5 million square feet of leasable office space and 600,000 square feet of retail