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Fighting Westway : Environmental Law, Citizen Activism, and the Regulatory War That Transformed New York City / William W. Buzbee.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press, [2014]Copyright date: ©2014Description: 1 online resource (312 p.) : 13 halftonesContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780801470301
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 388.411097471 23
LOC classification:
  • KFX2071 .B89 2016
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Figures -- List of Acronyms -- Westway Chronology, 1971–1985 -- Introduction -- 1. The Westway Plan -- 2. Highways, Subways, and the Seeds of Dissent -- 3. The Art of Regulatory War -- 4. The Road Warriors and the New Environment -- 5. Searching for Westway’s Achilles’ Heel: Air Pollution? -- 6. Westway’s Fill and America’s Protected Waters -- 7. The Public Fish Story -- 8. Enter the Independent Federal Judiciary and the Power of Law -- 9. Reexamining the 1971–1982 Debacles -- 10. Westway’s Second Chance -- 11. The Trial Crucible -- 12. The Cross-Examination -- 13. Judgment Days -- 14. Assessing Westway’s Outcome -- Epilogue: If Westway Were Proposed Today? -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- Index
Summary: From 1971 to 1985, battles raged over Westway, a multibillion-dollar highway, development, and park project slated for placement in New York City. It would have projected far into the Hudson River, including massive new landfill extending several miles along Manhattan’s Lower West Side. The most expensive highway project ever proposed, Westway also provoked one of the highest stakes legal battles of its day. In Fighting Westway, William W. Buzbee reveals how environmentalists, citizens, their lawyers, and a growing opposition coalition, despite enormous resource disparities, were able to defeat this project supported by presidents, senators, governors, and mayors, much of the business community, and most unions. Although Westway’s defeat has been derided as lacking justification, Westway’s critics raised substantial and ultimately decisive objections. They questioned claimed project benefits and advocated trading federal Westway dollars for mass transit improvements. They also exposed illegally disregarded environmental risks, especially to increasingly scarce East Coast young striped bass often found in extraordinarily high numbers right where Westway was to be built. Drawing on archival records and interviews, Buzbee goes beyond the veneer of government actions and court rulings to illuminate the stakes, political pressures, and strategic moves and countermoves that shaped the Westway war, a fight involving all levels and branches of government, scientific conflict, strategic citizen action, and hearings, trials, and appeals in federal court. This Westway history illuminates how high-stakes regulatory battles are fought, the strategies and power of America’s environmental laws, ways urban priorities are contested, the clout of savvy citizen activists and effective lawyers, and how separation of powers and federalism frameworks structure legal and political conflict. Whether readers seek an exciting tale of environmental, political, and legal conflict, to learn what really happened during these battles that transformed New York City, or to understand how modern legal frameworks shape high stakes regulatory wars, Fighting Westway will provide a good read.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780801470301

Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Figures -- List of Acronyms -- Westway Chronology, 1971–1985 -- Introduction -- 1. The Westway Plan -- 2. Highways, Subways, and the Seeds of Dissent -- 3. The Art of Regulatory War -- 4. The Road Warriors and the New Environment -- 5. Searching for Westway’s Achilles’ Heel: Air Pollution? -- 6. Westway’s Fill and America’s Protected Waters -- 7. The Public Fish Story -- 8. Enter the Independent Federal Judiciary and the Power of Law -- 9. Reexamining the 1971–1982 Debacles -- 10. Westway’s Second Chance -- 11. The Trial Crucible -- 12. The Cross-Examination -- 13. Judgment Days -- 14. Assessing Westway’s Outcome -- Epilogue: If Westway Were Proposed Today? -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

From 1971 to 1985, battles raged over Westway, a multibillion-dollar highway, development, and park project slated for placement in New York City. It would have projected far into the Hudson River, including massive new landfill extending several miles along Manhattan’s Lower West Side. The most expensive highway project ever proposed, Westway also provoked one of the highest stakes legal battles of its day. In Fighting Westway, William W. Buzbee reveals how environmentalists, citizens, their lawyers, and a growing opposition coalition, despite enormous resource disparities, were able to defeat this project supported by presidents, senators, governors, and mayors, much of the business community, and most unions. Although Westway’s defeat has been derided as lacking justification, Westway’s critics raised substantial and ultimately decisive objections. They questioned claimed project benefits and advocated trading federal Westway dollars for mass transit improvements. They also exposed illegally disregarded environmental risks, especially to increasingly scarce East Coast young striped bass often found in extraordinarily high numbers right where Westway was to be built. Drawing on archival records and interviews, Buzbee goes beyond the veneer of government actions and court rulings to illuminate the stakes, political pressures, and strategic moves and countermoves that shaped the Westway war, a fight involving all levels and branches of government, scientific conflict, strategic citizen action, and hearings, trials, and appeals in federal court. This Westway history illuminates how high-stakes regulatory battles are fought, the strategies and power of America’s environmental laws, ways urban priorities are contested, the clout of savvy citizen activists and effective lawyers, and how separation of powers and federalism frameworks structure legal and political conflict. Whether readers seek an exciting tale of environmental, political, and legal conflict, to learn what really happened during these battles that transformed New York City, or to understand how modern legal frameworks shape high stakes regulatory wars, Fighting Westway will provide a good read.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 26. Apr 2024)