Legal scholars argued sprawl required regulating land as a social asset with ownership duties

Evidence

In the lead article of the Iowa symposium, John Cribbet forcefully attacked the idea of “laissez-faire.” The laissez-faire philosophy had left landowners free to degrade the environment: “Minerals could be exploited, forests could be destroyed, streams could be polluted, water could be wasted, air could be contaminated, and buildings could be constructed in growing cities without regard to elementary principles of health (to say nothing of aesthetics), all in the sacred name of private property.” Though the laissez-faire tradition had begun to give way in the early 1900s to “a modernized philosophy of property,” the growth of suburbia had made all the more obvious the need for “regulation of land as a social asset.” The law needed especially to define the duties of ownership. “We are not abandoning our historical emphasis on individual rights in property,” Cribbet argued, “but we are expanding our emphasis on public rights.” — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 943

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Abuse of land stems from regarding it as owned commodity rather than community — Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac: With Other…, 10; Ecological reasoning led courts to deny landowners absolute rights over land — Richard J. Lazarus, The Making of Environmental Law, 319; Failed pragmatic sprawl fixes drove advocates toward radical property critique — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside:…, 574 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Land-use reformers redefined private land as a public resource warranting protection #corroborates (0.90) — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 964
• Entrenched property-ownership ideals defeated the effort to treat land as a social resource #complicates (0.85) — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 1077
• Land-rights law can be redirected to steward rather than possess the land #expands (0.85) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 1169
• Ecological land interdependence shifted legal theory toward communal property rights #expands (0.80) — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 948