The Law of Sprawl: A Road Map

Abstract

This article seeks to guide would-be teachers of a course on sprawl by showing how the author taught the seminar on “The Law of Sprawl” at Southern Illinois University (SIU) School of Law.

Specifically, the article asserts that a seminar on sprawl belongs in law school curricula as well as planning school curricula, because a wide variety of legal rules contribute to sprawl. The article then goes on to discuss those legal rules and how the author addressed them in his course. For example, the article discusses land use regulations that encourage automobile-dependent development, as well as state and federal highway, housing and education policies that favored suburbs over cities. As to each issue, the seminar addressed not only sprawl-producing government policies, but case law that upheld (or, in some cases, challenged) those policies.

Keywords: sprawl, teaching, legal education, law school curriculum, land use