Urban sprawl. Disappearing wetlands. Historic preservation. Eminent domain. These and related land-use issues have put private-property rights on the public agenda in a contentious, visible way. In this provocative book, legal scholar and conservationist Eric T. Freyfogle presents the private-property debate in a surprising new light while suggesting how we can both respect private property and achieve communal goals.
Freyfogle's argument culminates in an intriguing Landowner Bill of Rightsfar different from property-rights measures now being discussed.
Eric T. Freyfogle has written widely on the many links between people and land, and on the need for a more land-sensitive culture, including the recent books Agrarianism and the Good Society and Why Conservation Is Failing and How It Can Regain Ground. His nonlegal writings have appeared in various publications, from Conservation Biology, Wild Earth, and Orion to Dissent and The New York Times. Freyfogle has appeared widely as a speaker, not just at academic gatherings, but at land-related conferences sponsored by major federal agencies, major national conservation organizations, and such professional organizations as the Society of American Foresters, the George Wright Society, and the Natural Areas Association. In January 2004 he was appointed editor of the Leopold Conservation Papers Project, an effort to edit and publish in thematic volumes the conservation writings of Aldo Leopold. He teaches at the University of Illinois College of Law at Urbana-Champaign.