Law Between Buildings

Nisha Mistry serves as Director of the Fordham Urban Law Center at Fordham Law School. Previously, she served as a policy advisor to the City of Newark, New Jersey (U.S.A.) on matters related to manufacturing and industrial revitalization. She has also served as a Mayor’s Office Fellow and Nonresident Fellow with the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program.Nestor M. Davidson is a Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at Fordham Law School, as well as the Faculty Director of the Fordham Urban Law Center. Professor Davidson previously practiced with the firm of Latham & Watkins and served as Special Counsel and Principal Deputy General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

In 2009, for the first time in history, a majority of human beings lived in cities. Global urbanization will only increase during the upcoming decades, and it is more important than ever to understand how cities work. Law Between Buildings provides an important contribution to our knowledge of the formal and informal legal frameworks that shape the lives of the majority of the world's population. The chapters in this volume pull away the curtain and reveal how urban systems both promote and impede efforts to bring equity and justice to cities around the world. This is a significant work that should be read by academics and others concerned about how we will improve life in our urban areas. Wendell E. Pritchett, Presidential Professor of Law and Education, University of Pennsylvania Law School. This timely book broadens the focus on urban law and politics to a broad international perspective. The excellent chapters by leading scholars investigates the ways in which the built environment is shaped by local politics, legal doctrine, and social dynamics. It is, quite simply, an exemplary work of modern comparative socio-legal studies. Daniel B. Rodriguez, Dean and Harold Washington Professor, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law

• 1 Local Autonomy and Constitutional Law: An Uncertain Relationship[Richard Briffault] 2 Room to Live? Socio-legal Reflections on the United Kingdom’s Politics of Housing Space [Helen Carr]3 Building a Language of Municipal Bankruptcy and Insolvency on an Urban Law Foundation[Juliet Moringiello] 4 Crowdfunding in Asian Countries and its Interaction With Citizenship [Chen Hung-Yi] 5 Consumer Financial Protection, Inclusion and Education: Connecting the Local to the Global [Susan Block-Lieb]6 Living in the Shadow of the Law: Urban Segregation, Poverty and Informality [Jimena Suarez Ibarolla]7 Informal Housing – Plurality in the City [Julian Sidoli del Ceno]