Resources

2014. Author: Nicholas Marantz. At the turn of the twenty-first century, a new term entered the lexicon of urban redevelopment: the community benefits agreement (CBA). Although the term has been applied to a variety of arrangements, it frequently refers to a set of written commitments between a developer and organizations claiming to represent residents who would be affected by a development project. In return for political support from such organizations, developers offer assurances regarding...

2013. Author: Aditya Nochur. As coal-fired power plants across the U.S. are retiring in increasing numbers - a trend likely to continue in the years ahead - the communities that host these plants will play a critical role in balancing local concerns about public health, tax revenue, jobs and economic development with broader issues of fossil fuel dependence and climate change. This thesis investigates how three municipalities in Massachusetts are planning around the potential reuse and...

2022. Author: J. Nguyen H. Spencer. The central premise of the book, as well as the key lesson for readers is that infrastructure is the backbone of democracy. Without it, the process of collective governance fades beyond the immediacy of daily life. Using this premise, the book describes several case studies from Southeast Asia - rapidly urbanizing communities in Gresik, Indonesia; Can Tho, Viet Nam; Phnom Penh, Cambodia; and Ha Noi, Viet Nam - that illustrate the embeddedness of highly...

2022. Author: L. Susskind. Last summer, I prepared 11 short course outlines on specialized negotiation and dispute resolution topics and posted them on PON's website.

2022. Author: J. Dimento. Polar Shift addresses how to sustain the Arctic's richness, beauty, and local and global value. Its core describes programs specifically created to protect this region: the great inventory of law, policy, and civil society activity targeting sustainability of the region. It presents the Arctic’s environmental health very broadly understood and competing ideas of how it can be maintained or improved with specific recommendations. This is a book about the Arctic's past...

2015. Author: ​Leah Stokes. The United States has often led the world in supporting renewable energy technologies at both the state and federal level. However, since 2011 several states have weakened their renewable energy policies. Public opinion will probably be crucial for determining whether states expand or contract their renewable energy policies in the future. Here we show that a majority of the public in most states supports renewable portfolio standards, which require a portion of the...

2010. Author: Evan Paul. This thesis describes the comprehensive planning effort undertaken by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council in the Boston area. This effort engaged over 4,000 of the area's residents between 2002 and 2009 and produced a new vision and action plan for the region entitled 'MetroFuture,' Without formal authority to ensure compliance with the plan, the agency worked to increase the scale, transparency, and specificity of its efforts in order to build broad-based support for...

2018. Author: Alexandra Kahveci. The Massachusetts Land Court is overburdened. More than 15,000 new cases are filed each year, with the even more cases carried over from previous years. Each emotionally taxing case can cost litigants between $50,000- $150,000 to try, with no guarantee of winning. One promising option that would relieve the overload, reduce the cost to litigants, and give them control over the outcome is Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR). This is an approach to resolving...

2019. National League of Cities. Authors: K. Funk, Martin, C., Shark, A., and Bowen, D. Public services are going digital. At the most complex level, this requires policymakers to understand, manage and regulate the use of facial recognition software and micromobility technology like e-scooters, energy storage, smart energy meters or autonomous vehicles. But data is also increasingly at the core of more fundamental services such as trash collection, building and zoning permitting, f leet...

2019. Author: B. Schneier. As technology—especially computer, information, and Internet technology—permeates all aspects of our society, people who understand that technology need to be part of public-policy discussions. We need technologists who work in the public interest. We need public-interest technologists. Public-interest technologists are a diverse and interdisciplinary group of people. Their backgrounds are in technology, policy, or law. (This is important, you do not need a computer...

2019. Author: Jessica Gordon. After years of rapid economic growth and unbridled urbanization, China is now attempting to transition to an "ecological civilization," the nation's term for sustainable development. A foundational element of China's approach is the development and enforcement of "ecological conservation red lines" (ERLs). As the most comprehensive conservation plan in China's history, for up to 35% of its territory, ERLs define strictly controlled boundaries for ecosystem services...

2013. Author: Tushar Kansal. Shale gas development has become big business in the United States during the past decade, introducing drilling to parts of the country that have not seen it in decades and provoking an accelerating shift in the country's energy profile. State governments, which have historically regulated the oil and gas industry and continue to do so today, were in many cases caught by surprise by the speed and the scale of the shale gas boom and are still trying to update and...