Post date: August 7, 2003
Harvard Law School Professor Gerald Frug’s recent book, “City Making: Building Communities without Building Walls,” has been named the 2003 Paul Davidoff Award winner by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning. The Davidoff Award is presented every two years to a book that “promotes participatory democracy and positive social change, opposes poverty and racism as factors in society and reduces disparities between rich and poor, white and black, men and women.”
“I am particularly happy to receive this award, because it comes from the world of urban planning rather than a law school,” said Frug. “My purpose in writing my book was to help urban scholars in other fields learn about the importance of local government law in their own work. This award encourages me to think that they have gotten the message.”
“City Making: Building Communities without Building Walls” demonstrates how the current legal powers and divided jurisdictions of municipalities in America produce a separation between rich and poor and between racial and ethnic groups. He offers an alternative vision of cities’ legal powers, one that promotes local decision making while recognizing the connections cities within a single region have with one another.
A 1963 graduate of Harvard Law School, Frug has served on the faculty since 1981. He currently teaches contracts, local government law, and seminars dealing the urban issues.