This article provides the background for the adoption of the Ramapo ordinance, explains its precocious inventions in some detail, and describes other dramatic local inventions emanating from the Ramapo approach to smart growth. It ends with a reflection on the Quiet Revolution, the continuing disquiet that accompanies the spectacular smart growth inventions of local governments in this country, and modest recommendations for reform. Along the way, the reader will encounter the rebirth of performance zoning, local environmental laws that protect critical environmental resources, a local abandoned property reclamation act, the use of mediation to solve border wars between localities, an intermunicipal incentive zoning program based on cooperative annexation, and the emergence of a number of sub-regional land use compacts among local governments.
John R. Nolon, Golden and Its Emanations: The Surprising Origins of Smart Growth, 35 Urb. Law. 15 (2003), available at http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/lawfaculty/173/.