Major urban areas are often hampered in their ability to deal with vacant, abandoned, and tax-delinquent properties. They encounter obstacles with inefficient tax foreclosure procedures and ineffective nuisance abatement codes. They face reluctance to add to public inventories the title to...

This article is intended to shift attention away from the growing literature on state smart growth issues and focus on the continuing interest at the federal level with respect to land use planning and smart-growth issues. Although the article does not advocate a national land use policy, it...