Abstract
This Article focuses on the particularly vexing challenge of forging a sustainable urbanism in Edge Cities and analyzes regulatory attempts to control urban stormwater runoff. If our task is to "describe the natural world and to evaluate our actions toward it in ways that presuppose ... [a] community between nature and mankind," we must also characterize and address this source of considerable pollution, which originates from thousands of dispersed locations. Unfortunately, environmental protection efforts have only begun to address the pollution of urban stormwater runoffs. Parts II and III of this Article detail these largely unsuccessful attempts and conclude that the federal stormwater runoff pollution control program faces overwhelming and possibly insurmountable hurdles. Part IV examines the control of urban stormwater runoff in Edge Cities. While the federal stormwater program could, and should, address stormwater pollution prevention in these rapidly growing areas, it does not do so effectively. This shortcoming is amplified because it is more cost-effective to address incipient problems at an early stage of Edge Cities' rapid development than to correct them later. This Article concludes that the federal program has not been successful in this regard and that state and local efforts may be more promising.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1995
Recommended Citation
Joel B. Eisen, Toward a Sustainable Urbanism: Lessons from Federal Regulation of Urban Stormwater Runoff, 48 Wash. U. J. Urb. & Contemp. L. 1 (1995).