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25 Urb. Law. 197 (1993)
A Tale of Three Cities: Land Development and Planning for Growth in Stockholm, Berlin, and Los Angeles

handle is hein.journals/urban25 and id is 209 raw text is: A Tale of Three Cities: Land Development and Planning for Growth in Stockholm, Berlin, and Los Angeles James A. Kushner* Irwin R. Buchalter Professor of Law, Southwestern University School of Law; L.L.B., J.D., University of Maryland, 1968. B.B.A., University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida, 1967. I. Introduction IT WAS THE BEST OF TIMES, it was the worst of times ... ' The Berlin Wall has fallen signaling the end of the Cold War while Los Angeles lays claim to a different symbol. With twice the national unem- ployment rate and holding the record for homicides and other violent felonies, Los Angeles is in crisis. Stockholm, in its relative bucolic splendor, suffers from too much winter, too little daylight, a high sui- cide rate and consumer prices inflated by the high cost of the welfare *Research for this article was supported by a research grant from Southwestern University. Professor Kushner is the author of SUBDIVISION LAW AND GROWTH MAN- AGEMENT (Clark Boardman Callaghan 1991 & Supp. 1992). The author is indebted to Professor George Lefcoe, chair of the Property Forum at the University of Southern California, who organized and led a delegation of public officials and land developers in 1990, to which I, as an academic, was invited to join, to meet with developers, architects, public officials, and urban planners in Stockholm and Berlin and tour those communities to view current developments and housing projects. Much of this article is based upon that experience. The author is deeply appreciative of comments on a draft of this article received from Michael Frost, Norman Karlin, Joerg Knipprath, George Lefcoe, Robert Lutz, and Lawrence Sullivan, and the research assistance of Peggy Hughes and Kenne Phillips. 1. CHARLES DIcKENS, A TALE OF Two CITIES 3 (Great Illustrated Classics ed. 1942). The introduction to the Dickens classic which might be applied to current times, continues: It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going the other way-in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.