Housing, particularly affordable housing, has been the center of much discussion in the second decade of the twenty-first century in the United States. This Article focuses on that discussion in one American state — Oregon — containing slightly more than one percent of the country's...

This Article proceeds from the premise established in Part I of the series: that the national and state lawmaking systems routinely underrepresent urban policy preferences. Working from this premise, this paper explains why preemption of local initiatives is so common and also why it is often of...

Cities and counties have emerged as leaders in combating the United States’ obesity epidemic, adopting measures like requiring calorie postings on menu boards and providing financial incentives to full-service grocery stores. Public health advocacy groups have proposed additional policies...

Domestic and international law have, in different ways, recognized a human right to food since the twentieth century. The original reason for this recognition was the need to alleviate a particular type of food insecurity — “traditional” hunger, as manifested in conditions like...

Local health agencies are often leaders in public health regulation. Despite the significance of this phenomenon, scant scholarship has assessed the interesting doctrinal and normative questions that local agency rulemaking raises. This paper uses local health agency rulemaking, and the New York...

Big cities have frequently enacted public health regulations — especially with respect to tobacco use and obesity — that go beyond the state and federal regulatory floors. That cities innovate in public health at all is remarkable. They have less to gain financially from more stringent...

From 2006 to 2010, Portland, Oregon experimented with a publicly financed campaign system called "Voter-Owned Elections." In 2010, Portland's voters declined to renew the system. This article assesses Portland's experience with public financing and draws lessons therefrom that may inform efforts...

This Article, presented during a symposium on the sesquicentennial of the Oregon constitution, analyzes the state's system of municipal home rule, which was established by constitutional amendment in 1906, and makes two claims. First, the Article argues that a unique aspect of Oregon's home rule...

This essay responds to Professor Clayton Gillette’s “Fiscal Home Rule,” in which he argues that markets are more likely to ensure local fiscal discipline than constitutional restraints on municipal taxing and borrowing authority. This essay expands on Professor Gillette’s analysis by...