Customer Reviews

Property and Freedom : The Constitution, the Courts, and Land-Use Regulation (Studies in Social Philosophy and Policy)

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As a First-year Law Student, I needed supplementary reading as I began preparing for my Property final. Zoning and Takings were especially confusing, until I read Siegan's "Property and Freedom." Siegan lays it out in plain, simple terms. He cites the leading cases dealing with land use regulation, and relays the "black-letter law" applicable to different situations. Also included is Siegan's interpretation of the Constitution's Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. I highly recommend "Property and Freedom" to all Law Students and legal minds alike.

Bernard Siegan, professor of law at the University of San Diego, has been a pioneer in the analysis of government land-use controls. His 1972 book Land Use Without Zoning is a classic. If you want to rock a zoning advocate back on his heels, reading it is the best preparation. He was nominated for a seat on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, but his nomination died in the Senate Judiciary Committee, then firmly under the control of opponents of private property rights and the free market. Judge Siegan would have been a voice of reason on the bench, but Professor Siegan continues to wage war against those who misinterpret the Constitution and promote the folly of government land use regulation.

In Property and Freedom, Siegan brings together decades of work. From the debates over the meaning of the Constitution to the most recent decisions in the land-use field, this is the book to have if you want to be well informed on the issues. (Excerpted from a review published in The Freeman, August 1998)

In the last 25 years, I have watched in fear and amazement as the socialist inclined citizens use governmental bodies to effectively steal property or partial property from fellow Americans with what appears to be impunity. This book was the first one, I have ever read which legally explains how this tragedy occurred and how we may have a glimmer of light to the eventual turn around. This book sheds more truthful insight into the legal issues and ramifications of court cases than anything you will ever hear in the media or even from the local legal councils of our governing bodies.

Although Richard Pombo and James V. DeLong have recently published books concerning property rights, Bernard Siegan's Property and Freedom is by far the most informative of the popularly priced books on the subject. Siegan delves into areas that are usually overlooked and takes a much more thorough look at the Constitutional implications of various laws and regulations.

His emphasis on zoning (Houston TX has no zoning laws) is very much recommended by this reader. Although my interest is not directly focused on zoning, I was fascinated by his thoroughness on the issue.

Siegan is a University of San Diego law professor, and takes a much more pointed view of various issues. Therefore, I recommend that the interested reader look at Ely's, Pombo's, or DeLong's works before attempting Siegan's. Still, in all, it is the best popular work on modern property rights that I have come across.

Zoning has many critics, but none has stated the case for its abolition more clearly or forcefully than professor Siegan.

For a complementary perspective, I recommend economics professor William A. Fischel's 'The Homevoter Hypothesis' (2001)