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Persistent Localism: New Haven's Role in Intergovernmental Water Pollution Control and Sewage Treatment ProgramsThe standarq story of environmental protection over the twentieth century is one of scattered successes with limited impact until the federal government took steps to solve the most pressing environmental issues. While significant problems remain, federal efforts often made substantial improvements in the nation's air quality and waterways. In the area of water policy before the Clean Water Act, most states had water pollution control programs funded by federal grants that did not successfully improve water quality. By the 1970s, the Americans were becoming more environmentally aware, and Congress realized that a new, more forceful effort was needed to address their concerns.
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The City's Role in Renewal: A Comparative Study of Redevelopment in Two New Haven DistrictsLooking forward to New Haven’s future, we are faced with the question of what role the city should take in redevelopment. John Elwood looked for insight into that question in his 1994 article Rethinking Government Participation in Urban Renewal: Neighborhood Revitalization in New Haven. He examined two redevelopment projects: the Ninth Square and Upper State Street. While the former was achieved in a Lee-esque manner, with significant government funding and involvement, the latter was initiated and carried out largely by small property owners, although the government did provide incentives and assistance. Elwood characterizes the Ninth Square project as “coarse-grained,” based on the fact that the entire area was developed according to a master plan, and Upper State Street, which redeveloped building by building, as “fine-grained.” Elwood argues that the government-driven, coarse-grained approach is in various ways inferior to the more spontaneous fine-grained approach. Specifically, Elwood notes that Upper State Street-type development is faster and lessens the government’s financial burden. In this article, I embark on a similar comparison, focusing on the Ninth Square and what I will call the “Crown Street District.” The Ninth Square occupies a four-square-block area between Chapel and George Streets and Church and State Streets. The Crown Street District is much less clearly demarcated but encompasses a variety of commercial establishments along Crown Street and its cross streets, between High Street and Church Street. While Elwood focuses on the costs of the development process itself, I focus more on the question of ultimate success. I ask whether New Haven has succeeded in revitalizing the Ninth Square, and to what extent revitalization can be accomplished without such government involvement.
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When Was The Yale Law School Really Founded?In 1874, during the celebration of the Yale Law School's "Semicentennial Anniversary," Theodore Woolsey, a former Yale President and Professor at the Law School, claimed that the Law School had been founded in 1824 when a group of students were listed as "Law Students" in the Yale Catalogue. These students studied in a small proprietary law school started by Seth P. Staples and operated, in 1824, by Samuel J. Hitchcock and David Daggett. Their listing in the catalogue seems to indicate a connection between the Staples-Hitchcock-Daggett school and Yale College. Since 1874, Yale historians and the Yale Law School itself have designated this 1824 connection as a founding, though with some apparent hesitation. This Note examines fresh evidence about the origins of the Yale Law School, including the affiliation of the Staples school with Yale College. It begins by analyzing the documents on which the 1824 founding date is based. Using this evidence, along with biographies and obituaries of Yale students, I show that, in fact, students in the Staples school were listed prior to 1824 under the category of "Resident Graduates." After examining Harvard College Catalogues, I show that Harvard Law School students were also listed as "Resident Graduates" during its early period.
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Financing Innovation: Infrastructure Development In New Haven, 1750-1850The nineteenth century was a time of astonishing change in technologies of transportation. When the Constitution was ratified, to travel from New Haven to Hartford would require an arduous and uncertain trip on a rough road that could span more than a day. At the start of the twentieth century, railroads conveyed thousands of people daily along that route in a few hours, and the first automobiles were motoring over roads. The great progress in infrastructure development radically transformed the commercial, physical, and cultural landscape of America. This transformation required great mobilizations of capital and human labor, which, in turn, were dependent upon a variety of institutions: corporations, banks, courts to enforce contracts, regulatory bodies, and more. Behind the physical infrastructure of America lies a legal and institutional infrastructure which enables change even as it responds to it. This paper will explore the development of this more abstract infrastructure. Beginning in the late eighteenth century, business organizations and transactional structures progressed rapidly as they supported physical and economic development of the country. Vast mobilizations of energy and capital had to be coordinated; law served this function. Through a series of case-studies from New Haven the paper will consider the role of law in the development of the young nation.
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The Greatest Mall There Never Was: Assessing the Failed Attempt to Build the New Haven GalleriaIn late 1995, a dream that had fixated New Haven’s leadership since the 1960’s was coming to an end. Long buffeted by a population and wealth exodus to the suburbs, leaders had looked to a glittery downtown shopping mall to draw people, and their money, back to the city. Downtown was remade to accommodate retail heavy hitters: Macy’s, Malley’s, and the Chapel Square Mall. But it wasn’t working. Macy’s was gone. Chapel Square was hemorrhaging tenants. And so, after decades of public effort to make large-scale retail work downtown, the city’s mayor was ready to write the idea’s obituary: “[New Haven mayor John] DeStefano said he has been working since summer on ‘defining the role of the downtown for the future.’ In that time, the mayor said, he has come to believe that having a large shopping mall downtown is probably no longer feasible.” Yet what happened next took just about everyone by surprise. Instead of giving up the retailing ghost, DeStefano announced plans for a $500 million upscale shopping paradise, a brand new suburban-style mall, just outside the downtown core and subsidized with $85 million in public money, at the confluence of the three highways that intersected the city. “Hailed as the salvation of a city too long becalmed in the economic doldrums,” the New Haven Galleria project promised to remake Connecticut’s retail landscape and return a bounty of jobs and new tax revenue to a suffering urban center. It also launched one of the most protracted and expensive land use fights in New Haven’s history, sparked a lobbying, legal, and public relations war that pitted the city’s downtown core against the city’s leadership, and ended in complete failure. Or, at least, that’s the way it seemed at the time. In the years since the Galleria’s demise, almost all of the key players who worked for half a decade to bring the project to fruition have forsaken it as misconceived, oversold, or potentially ruinous. DeStefano himself, during his failed campaign for Governor of Connecticut in 2006, said that trying the build the mall was the biggest mistake of his career. How this economic miracle that nearly transformed a city morphed into a historical pariah, and whether the now-maligned megamall would have actually benefitted the city as whole, is the subject of this analysis.
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The Student View of Yale Law School 1883-1912: The ShingleDuring one twenty-year period, the graduating students of Yale Law School published books in which their views of the school (and to a small extent the faculty's views as well) were captured. This series of books - The Yale Shingle - was published from 1893 to 1912. My goal in writing this paper is profile student life at Yale as reports in the Shingle. Its life spanned an important time in the school's history - a time of significant change.
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The Contracts Notes of Timothy Merwin: Earliest Evidence of Instruction at Yale Law SchoolThis paper discusses the contracts notes of one of the first students at the Yale Law School. The notes were taken in 1828, making them the earliest known evidence of the method of instruction employed by the law school's founders.
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Community Policing in New Haven: Social Norms, Police Culture, and the Alleged Crisis of Criminal ProcedureNick Pastore will forever be known as one of New Haven's most colorful historical figures. The Chief of Police in New Haven from 1990 to 1997, Pastore was well-known for his outrageous comments and unusual antics. New Haven's chief proponent of community policing, Pastore referred to himself in interviews as "'an outstanding patrol officer,' a 'super crime-fighting cop,' 'a good cop with the Mafia,' [and] 'Sherlock Holmes."'1 Pastore, unlike his immediate predecessor, highly valued working with the community and advocated for a focus on reducing crime rather than increasing arrests. Pastore once informed that New York Times that in 21st century New Haven, "You're not going to spend $30,000 for one black inmate." Instead, "You're going to send him to Yale. You're going to send him to the University of New Haven.
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Solutions to an Urban Public Goods Problem: Business Improvement Districts in New Haven, ConnecticutIn downtown New Haven, the newest color is green. Festive green banners flutter from the lamp posts, welcoming visitors downtown. Along sidewalks, in window boxes, and in vestpocket parks, trees and plants flourish, with green leaves and bouquets of blossoms. On the sides of municipal buses, green placards boast the excited message "Do Downtown!" Members of a "Clean Team," dressed in distinctive fluorescent green jackets, sweep and steam-clean the sidewalks. Green bags covering parking meters on Saturdays and Sundays advertise free parking to weekend shoppers. The downtown is awash in glorious green.
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THE NEW HAVEN AIRPORT: A FAILURE OF LOCAL CONTROLOne and a half million Connecticut residents live closer to Tweed-New Haven Airport than any other commercial airport. Yet travelers today can reach only two other cities from New Haven and cannot take a jet flight. No other commercial airport in New England provides air service to fewer of its surrounding residents than Tweed-New Haven. Around the area, community and business leaders cite the lack of an adequate airport as a key roadblock in the economic development of New Haven.
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No Place To Park: The Uneasy Relationship Between a City and its CarsIn 1951, Richard C. Lee, a man who was soon to become one of the most famous mayors in America, addressed “one of the major problems of [his] community” at a meeting of New Haven, Connecticut’s Democratic Town Committee: I cannot state too strongly that I consider this situation to be extremely serious…. [It] is sapping the lifeblood of our midtown business area and it takes little imagination to see how this, in a vicious progression, will gradually work against the well-being of all the other segments of our integrated community life.…New Haven is not alone in its disease. Nearly all large American cities have been afflicted….A situation which is hurting our downtown business life should and must be corrected; this is a basic essential to civic betterment, and all citizens will share in that betterment.[1] Lee was not talking about crime, unemployment, inflation, racial tensions, or the slums he would become known for razing and “redeveloping.” Instead, he was talking about parking. [1] Richard Lee, Remarks at the Democratic Town Committee Meeting (Aug. 16, 1951) (transcript available in the Yale University Library).
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Racial Residential Integration in Greater New Haven in the Post-Civil Rights EraEqual housing opportunity for all people regardless of race has been the law in the United Statesfor almost forty years. Nevertheless, racial residential segregation persists. This paper examines the extent to which fair housing laws and institutions have met their goal of promoting racial residential integration in Greater New Haven, Connecticut. For the purposes of this paper, Greater New Haven is defined as the fifteen towns and cities that comprise the South Central Connecticut Regional Council of Governments,[1] which includes Bethany, Branford, East Haven, Guilford, Hamden, Madison, Meriden, Milford, New Haven, North Branford, North Haven, Orange, Wallingford, West Haven, and Woodbridge.[2] Part II examines racial demographic change in Greater New Haven from 1970 to 2000. In this section, I highlight the region’s population growth and increased racial diversity during this period, and analyze the extent of neighborhood racial integration in the area. I also present the results of a block-level analysis of the racially integrated neighborhoods inNew Haven,West Haven,Hamden, andMeridento determine the extent of racial mixing at a micro level. Finally, I evaluate the stability of racially integrated neighborhoods over the course of the thirty-year period. [1] The South Central Connecticut Council of Regional Governments (SCRCOG) is a consortium of local governments that convenes to coordinate land use and transportation development. South Central Connecticut Council of Regional Governments, Website Homepage, http://www.scrcog.org/index.htm. [2] See infra Appendix, Map 1.
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The Evolution of the Kangaroo: The History of Municipal Border Change in New Haven, ConnecticutThe borders of New Haven, Connecticut, like those of many other American cities, appear to be wildly irrational. Starting on the west side of New Haven harbor, the boundary follows the West River northward for slightly more than a mile, suddenly jogging west for two miles then continuing north and veering northeast. Before turning eastward, the line juts out to capture two oddly shaped protrusions in the northwest comer of the city. After traveling east for four miles the boundary banks 120° south to include a four mile-long, half-mile wide strip along the east side of the harbor. Somehow, New Haven has taken the shape of a pregnant kangaroo.
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The Creation of Urban Homes: Apartment Buildings in New Haven, 1890-1930In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, America experienced tremendous development and growth as the industrial revolution spurred on the national economy and transformed the social landscape. An important change was the shift of the population from a dispersed agrarian base towards concentrations in urban centers. The growth of cities marked not only a significant shift of population, but also the development of an entire culture and system around the concept of large-scale proximate living. While there is much literature on the factors leading up to the inward spiral, as well as the process of urban sprawl,[1] but much less is known about how American cities grew during this formative period and the housing that supported the population boom. Very little attention has been paid to the development of apartment housing, a novel architectural form that housed middle- to upper-class urban dwellers in the central city. This is the first study outside of New York City that traces the rise of the American apartment that came hand in hand with the rise of modern cities.[2] These new urban homes achieved great strides during this time period. As early as 1926, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the construction of apartments exceeded that of single-family dwellings in a representative group of 257 cities.[3] [1] See, e.g., Sam Bass Warner Jr., Streetcar Suburbs: The Process of Growth in Boston, 1870-1900 (1962) (seminal study of the division of cities into a central region of commerce and slums surrounded by commuter suburbs); Doug W. Rae, City: Urbanism and its End (2003) (analyzing why New Haven rose in the first half of the 20th century, and fell in the second half). [2] The example of New York City provides an interesting, but incomplete picture of the development of American urban housing. While it was the first American city to embrace apartments, the uniqueness of the city makes its story less comparable to other urban histories. See, e.g., Elizabeth Hawes, New York, New York: How the Apartment House Transformed the Life of the City (1869-1930) (1993); Elizabeth Collins Cromley, Alone Together: a History of New York’s Early Apartments (1990). [3] From 1921 to 1927, the percentage of families residing in apartments in the United States nearly doubled. Joseph H. Abel & Fred N. Severud, Apartment Houses 2 (1947).
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Interdistrict School Choice: Clustering in Action?Recent years have seen the rise of new public school options in many of America’s metropolitan areas.[1] Privately run charter schools, magnet schools that draw their attendees not only from different municipalities but also different neighborhoods, and open enrollment plans that allow children to attend school in another public school district entirely are changing the face of public education in America. The neighborhood public school, which long defined both the primary and secondary educational experience for most Americans, has become only one of many options available. [1] See Heritage Foundation, School Choice: Greater Opportunities in Education, http://www.heritage.org/research/education/schoolchoice/schoolchoice.cfm (last visited May 8, 2007) (discussing current status of school choice in each state); Heritage Foundation, School Choice: Types of School Choice, http://www.heritage.org/research/education/schoolchoice/typesofschoolchoice.cfm (last visited May 8, 2007) (detailing various forms of school choice).
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A dedicatory letter and its context: Beinecke MS 1154.The text is written in two different Italian scripts of the early or mid twelfth century. The first hand ceases after the first three letters of f.84r (the - dam of quodam in Liber de Vita Christiana IV.44). The first line, after -dam, and the next three lines of f.84r are blank. The second hand begins on the fourth line at the start of Liber de Vita Christiana IV.45 with ‘Filius Romanum ecclesiam’. The second hand is smaller and rounder, probably later than the first, which is more clear and consistent through the first half of the text. The layout and structure of the text, including patterns of the rubric, remains the same throughout despite this change.
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Public Law and Legal Education in the Nineteenth Century: The Founding of Burgess' School of Political Science at ColumbiaThis paper discusses the founding of the School of Political Science at Columbia University by John W. Burgess in 1880. Burgess established the political science school after failing in his attempts to introduce a program of coursework in political science and public law at Columbia's School of Law. He hoped that the new school would supplement the private-law curriculum of the law school, with the particular aim of preparing students for a career in public service.
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A Walk Through West Haven: Land Use Coordination, Homeownership, and the Origins of Zoning in an American SuburbIn his social history of Boston's inner suburbs, Sam Warner reminded his readers that "[t]he world is full of Roxburys and Dorchesters; places statesmen never visited. towns and counties upon whose fate no intellectual movement or nation has as yet depended.
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State and Local Regulation of Immigration and Immigrants: A Connecticut Case StudyIn March 2007, the New York Times published an editorial contrasting the approaches of three Connecticut cities—Stamford, New Haven, and Danbury—to the issue of undocumented immigration.[1] Entitled “Immigration: A Tale of Three Cities,” the article began by observing that “Connecticut does not speak with one voice on immigration. … Cities send their own messages, some welcoming, some divisive.”[2] Yet expressive measures addressing undocumented immigration are not confined to the local level; Connecticut’s state legislature has in recent years “spoken” multiple times on the issue by passing legislation favorable to the state’s undocumented population. My examination of subfederal regulation of immigration in Connecticut provides a counterpoint to oft-articulated arguments against state and local immigration measures. While such arguments tend to focus on restrictive measures, recent developments in Connecticut highlight the potential for furthering immigrants’ rights through subfederal regulation. [1] Editorial, Immigration: A Tale of Three Cities, N.Y. Times, Mar. 4, 2007, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9507E3DE1631F937A35750C0A9619C8B63 [hereinafter Three Cities]. [2] Id.
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Community Benefits Agreements in a Union City: How The Structure of CBAs May Result in Inefficient, Unfair Land Use DecisionsCommunity benefits agreements (CBAs) are hailed by land use reform advocates as an effective, flexible, inclusive tool for making land use decision-making processes more responsive to traditionally underserved communities. Using the power of community organizing to gain leverage over developers as they navigate zoning and other regulatory chokepoints, CBAs allow traditionally disorganized residents and businesses to extract benefits and conditions directly from developers. This value capture process, reformists argue, helps reduce the negative impact of diffuse economic and social externalities that either cannot or will not be mitigated by the traditional land use regulatory apparatus. The reformist narrative, however, fails to account for the overriding strength of one particular subset of participating interest groups—that of organized labor—in leading the charge for community benefits. Those interests, this paper argues, often wield disproportionate power in the informal negotiations underlying the formation of a CBA, and have structured CBAs so as to avoid the preemptive effects of federal labor law. In so doing, labor’s preeminent interests may undermine the very goals of efficiency, inclusion, and equity in distribution of developers’ rents that CBAs purport to advance. This paper evaluates this claim by telling the story of one particular deal in New Haven: a CBA negotiated in advance of a public land sale to an independent charter school management organization. By analyzing the deal against both the historical development of CBAs and the normative criteria against which scholars have evaluated other land use controls, this paper aims to shed light on whether the structural incentives built into CBAs may underserve interests that the existing regulatory regime is designed to protect.
