A new edition with new and updated case studies and analysis that demonstrate the trend in U.S. environmental policy toward sustainability at local and regional levels.

This analysis of U.S. environmental policy offers a conceptual framework that serves as a valuable roadmap to the array of laws, programs, and approaches developed over the last four decades. Combining case studies and theoretical discussion, the book views environmental policy in the context of three epochs: the rise of command-and-control federal regulation in the 1970s, the period of efficiency-based reform efforts that followed, and the more recent trend toward sustainable development and integrated approaches at local and regional levels. It assesses the strengths and weaknesses of the new approaches and places these experiments within the larger framework of an emerging trend toward community sustainability.

Toward Sustainable Communities assesses environmental policy successes and failures at the subnational, regional, and state levels and offers eight case studies of policy arenas in which transformations have been occurring--from air and water pollution control and state and local climate change policy to open space preservation, urban growth, and regional ecosystem management. It discusses the various meanings of sustainability and whether the concept can serve as a foundation for a new era of environmental policy. The second edition has been substantially updated, with five new chapters (including the chapter on climate change) and all other chapters revised and shortened. It is suitable as a primary or secondary text for environmental policy courses and as a resource for scholars and policymakers.

Contributors
Elisa Barbour, Michele M. Betsill, Daniel J. Fiorino, Marc Gaden, Lamont C. Hempel, Michael E. Kraft, William D. Leach, Mark Lubell, Daniel A. Mazmanian, Nicole Nakagawa, Kent E. Portney, Daniel Press, Paul A. Sabatier, Barry G. Rabe, Michael B. Teitz

Michael E. Kraft is Professor of Political Science and Public Affairs Emeritus and Herbert Fisk Johnson Professor of Environmental Studies Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

Daniel J. Fiorino is Director of the Center for Environmental Policy in the School of Public Affairs at American University.

Daniel A. Mazmanian is Professor of Public Policy at the Sol Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California.

Michael E. Kraft is Professor of Political Science and Public Affairs Emeritus and Herbert Fisk Johnson Professor of Environmental Studies Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

Michele M. Betsill is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Colorado State University.

Barry G. Rabe is J. Ira and Nicki Harris Family Professor of Public Policy and Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Environmental Policy at the University of Michigan, where his primary appointment is in the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. He also directs the Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy at the Ford School and is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Kent E. Portney is Professor and Senior Fellow in the Institute for Science, Technology, and Public Policy at Texas A&M University. He is the author of Taking Sustainable Cities Seriously (MIT Press).

Mark Lubell is Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at the University of California, Davis.

Paul A. Sabatier is Professor of Environmental Science and Policy at the University of California, Davis.

Barry G. Rabe is J. Ira and Nicki Harris Family Professor of Public Policy and Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Environmental Policy at the University of Michigan, where his primary appointment is in the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. He also directs the Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy at the Ford School and is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Michael E. Kraft is Professor of Political Science and Public Affairs Emeritus and Herbert Fisk Johnson Professor of Environmental Studies Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

Daniel A. Mazmanian is Professor of Public Policy at the Sol Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California.