Bordering on Madness: An American Land Use Tale

This novel gives a great overview of some typical land use issues, cleverly woven into a tale of corruption, revenge, madness -- and love! It's an easy read, and left me thinking about both sides of the story, as well as some real-life land use issues in my own community. I truly enjoyed reading it.

This entertaining, easy-to-read book tells a story of a rezoning application leading to murder and mayhem, with crazed NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) activists fighting a vengeful mobster. Of course, this tale is not particularly realistic; most zoning disputes involve more compromise than this one. And the book's discussion of legal issues is pretty thin; you wouldn't learn the difference between a variance and a rezoning by reading it. But if you're going to read a novel, you might as well read one with some educational content- and this filled the bill for me.