Michael Lewyn

Michael Lewyn is an American jurist and legal scholar. He is the Director of the Institute on Land Use and Sustainable Development and an Associate Professor of Law Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center in Central Islip, NY. He primarily teaches Property Law, Land Use Law, and Environmental Law.
== Education and early career ==
Originally from Atlanta, Lewyn graduated from Wesleyan University in 1983. He received his J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1986, and an L.L.M. from the University of Toronto in 2010. 
After clerking for two federal judges, Lewyn began his teaching career as visiting assistant professor at the University of Miami School of Law from 1992 to 1994, where he taught civil procedure, criminal law, employment discrimination, antitrust, election law, and legal writing. After several years practicing law, Lewyn returned to academia in 2000, when he began teaching at John Marshall Law School in Atlanta. At John Marshall, Lewyn began to teach property and land use law, as well as courses related to tort law and professional responsibility.
In 2006, Prof. Lewyn moved to Florida Coastal School of Law where his teaching began to focus on the areas covered by his scholarship- property, land use and environmental law. Lewyn has been an Associate Professor at Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center since 2011 where he teaches and is the Director of the Land Use and Sustainability Institute.
In addition, he has held one-year visiting appointments at numerous other law schools, including Rutgers Law School in Camden, New Jersey, the Southern Illinois University School of Law, George Washington University Law School, UMKC School of Law, and the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.
== Scholarship ==
Most of Prof. Lewyn's recent work focuses on two problems: "suburban sprawl" and the rise of housing costs. Lewyn approaches both problems from a Market urbanism#:~:text=Market%20urbanism%20is%20an%20urban,theory%20to%20urban%20policy%20issues.|market urbanist standpoint, emphasizing the role of free-market solutions to these problems. 
His most heavily cited articles reject the idea that suburban sprawl is a result of the free market. Instead, Lewyn suggests that government has encouraged suburbanization through a wide variety of policies.
For example, one of his most heavily cited articles addresses sprawl-promoting regulation in Houston. An updated edition of Bernard Siegan's book Land Use Without Zoning cites Lewyn's research to show that "Houston continues to enforce many elements of conventional zoning, including minimum lot sizes and minimum parking requirements.Land Use Without Zoning, Bernard H. Siegan, p. 251 (2020). In turn, these regulations, by limiting density, created automobile-dependent environments, because when very few people can live within walking distance of public transit stops, very few people can use such transit.Erick Guerra and Robert Cervero, Transit and the "D" Word, at https://www.accessmagazine.org/spring-2012/transit-d-word/ According to the Social Science Research Network, Lewyn's paper on Houston has been downloaded over 1900 times. His article has been cited by articles on Rice University's urban planning webpage. 
Lewyn has also engaged in comparative research. His research related to Canada, cited in the comparative work of Ray Tomalty and Alan Mallach, points out that Canadian cities generally grew in the late 20th century, while many American cities shrunk.Ray Tomalty and Alan Mallach, America's Urban Future: Lessons from North of the Border, Tables 4-6 and 4-7 (2016) They also cite Lewyn's research to support their view that although Canadian cities do have anti-density regulations, their rules are often not as strict as those of American cities and suburbs.Id., Table 9-1 and accompanying text
His work has also been cited in the popular press. For example, an article on the libertarian Independent Institute's Catalyst web page discusses Lewyn's 2017 book, Government Intervention and Suburban Sprawl. The article points out that according to Lewyn, sprawl has been caused not just by zoning, but also by "highway spending that facilitated suburban commuting, school residency requirements that force city residents into poverty-packed public schools while creating homogeneously affluent suburban schools, and federal housing policies that favored suburbanites over city residents.”Scott Beyer, Is Sprawl A Consumer Choice or a Governnment Mandate?, Catalyst, at https://catalyst.independent.org/2020/10/20/sprawl-consumer-choice-mandate/ 
More recently, Lewyn has focused on the rise of housing costs in New York and other high-cost cities. He generally favors less restrictive zoning and more urban housing. An article in Reason magazine on this subject cites Lewyn's research on Vienna, Austria, where housing costs are lower than in some American cities because the government both allows more private housing than many American cities and builds more public housing than U.S. cities.Christian Britschgi, Maryland Housing Package Combines Upzoning with Vienna-Style Social Housing, at https://reason.com/2020/01/09/maryland-housing-package-combines-upzoning-with-vienna-style-social-housing/ However, Lewyn is not a strict libertarian: according to the same article, Lewyn believes that even in deregulated markets, some people will be unable to afford market-rate housing and thus will need government support.Id. The [Congress for New Urbanism has cited Lewyn's research to support the proposition that restrictive zoning laws have limited the supply of housing in walkable neighborhoods.
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Much of Lewyn's recent scholarship has responded to "Not In My Back Yard" NIMBY activists who argue that the law of supply and demand does not apply to urban neighborhoods.
Lewyn has also addressed these issues as a blogger. He is a regular blogger at the Planetizen website; although much of his recent work has focused on obstacles to urban housing supply, he has addressed a wide range of other issues. His blog posts have been cited and reprinted in a variety of sources, including the World Bank's blog and the Strong Towns urban planning page.
He also blogs at the Market Urbanism blog; his work on this blog is more narrowly focused on issues related to free markets and deregulation.
== Land Use Institute ==
Lewyn has headed Touro's Institute on Land Use and Sustainable Development Law since 2017. The Land Use Institute sponsors speakers and forums on a variety of issues related to Long Island and (to a lesser extent) the rest of the New York metro area. In 2021, for example, the Institute sponsored conferences on 
water policy in Long Island, inclusive housing policy, and the role of county planning commissions. In 2019, the Institute sponsored conferences on major development projects in Long Island, economic opportunity zones, and land use planning in Long Island. Local attorneys, real estate developers, and government officials have spoken at these conferences.
== Books and Articles ==
Books: 
Government Intervention and Suburban Sprawl (2017)
A Libertarian Smart Growth Agenda: How to Limit Sprawl Without Limiting Property Rights (2012)
Selected articles: 
Explaining Market Urbanism, Real Estate Law Journal, 2018. 
The Criminalization of Walking, University of Illinois Law Review, 2017.
Yes to Infill, No to Nuisance, Fordham Urban Law Journal, 2015.
Sprawl in Canada and the United States, Urban Lawyer, 2012.
Character Counts: The "Character of the Government Action" in Regulatory Takings Actions, Seton Hall Law Review, 2010.
Why Pedestrian-Friendly Street Design is Not Negligent, University of Louisville Law Review, 2008.
Five Myths About Sprawl, Harvard BlackLetter Law Journal, 2007.
You Can Have It All: Less Sprawl And Property Rights Too, Temple Law Journal, 2007.
How Government Regulation Forces Americans into their Cars: A Case Study, Widener Law Journal, 2007.
How Overregulation Creates Sprawl (Even In A City Without Zoning), Wayne Law Review, 2005.
Campaign of Sabotage: Big Government's War Against Public Transportation, Columbia Journal of Environmental Law, 2001.
Suburban Sprawl: Not Just An Environmental Issue, Marquette Law Review, 2000.
Category:American people
Category:People from Atlanta
Category:American jurists