New Yorkers have historically worked through local and state government to shape their communities and respond to environmental problems, over time seeking change through policies in areas as disparate as forest conservation, better housing, and pollution control. But was the resulting expanded government authority too much of a good thing? Can it still help solve our state's troubles? In our era of skepticism about too much government, Stradling proposes that the history of New York State might help us negotiate new solutions to urgent environmental problems.
David Stradling is a professor of history at the University of Cincinnati, where he teaches urban and environmental history. He is the author of The Nature of New York: An Environmental History of the Empire State and Making Mountains: New York City and the Catskills, among other works. He attended Colgate University, and he has been trying to move back to New York since earning his PhD at Wisconsin-Madison in 1996.