Stephen R. Miller is the Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Professor of Law at the University of Idaho College of Law in Boise.  His research focuses on a wide array of issues that affect local development.  This research includes land use law and policy, affordable housing, state and local government structure, the evolution of the sharing economy and urban technologies, disaster planning with an emphasis on wildfire, and sustainable and resilient development in fast growth communities.

His numerous books, chapters, law review articles and editorials have been published by Cambridge University Press, the Harvard Environmental Law Review and the Harvard Journal on Legislation, among others.  He is the co-author of a leading casebook, Land Use and Sustainable Development Law (West 2017), co-editor of a collection of essays on climate change (ELI 2016).  He is the editor-in-chief of two journals, the ABA Journal of Affordable Housing & Community Development Law and Thomson Reuters’ Real Estate Review.

He has served as a consultant on United States’ land use governance for the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and as an advisor to the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency on the creation of a National Risk Index. He has also received grants from the U.S. Forest Service, the Idaho Department of Lands, the Center for Advanced Energy Studies, and a sub-grant from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.  He has served as a commissioner on the Boise Planning & Zoning Commission and presently serves on several nonprofit boards across the country.

He has twice been named Faculty Advisor of the Year by the Idaho Law Review and also received the Alumni Award for Faculty Excellence.

His article, “Legal Neighborhoods,” which was published in the Harvard Environmental Law Review, was reprinted in the Land Use and Environmental Law Review, an annual, peer-selected compendium of the ten best land use and environmental law articles of the year. Two of his articles, “A Coordinated Approach to Food Safety and Land Use Law at the Urban Fringe,” and “Local Environmental Regulation in the Mountain West,” have been reprinted in the Zoning and Planning Law Handbook, an annual collection of influential articles

Professor Miller currently is principal investigator on a $240,000 grant from the U.S. Forest Service and the Idaho Department of Lands to develop legal and code-based strategies to reduce the impact of wildfire in the wildland-urban interface (WUI). Prior to his administrative role, he directed the Economic Development Clinic, which received the Planning Excellence Award for Best Practice, the highest annual award from the Idaho chapter of the American Planning Association, for Area of City Impact Agreements in Idaho.

He is also a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners and serves on the American Planning Association’s Amicus Curiae Committee.

Professor Miller received his undergraduate degree from Brown University, a master’s degree in city and regional planning from the University of California, Berkeley, and his J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of Law. 

Professor Miller can also be found at Land Use Prof Blog and @LandUseProf.

For a full list of Prof. Miller's publications and activities, please see his CV.

• Land Use & Environmental Law
• Sustainability & Climate Change Law
• Real Estate Law
• Community Economic Development
• State & Local Government Law
• Administrative Law

Book

Land Use and Sustainable Development Law: Cases and Materials (9th ed. 2017) (co-authored with John Nolon, Patricia Salkin & Jonathan Rosenbloom).

Book Chapter

Urban Data and the Platform City, in The Cambridge Handbook of the Law of the Sharing Economy (Nestor Davidson, Michele Finck & John Infranca eds., 2018).

Law Review Articles

Informal Governance Structures and Disaster Planning: The Case of Wildfire, 40 U. Ark. Little Rock L. Rev. 633 (2018) (co-authored with Jaap Vos & Eric Lindquist).

Local Environmental Regulation in the Mountain West, 46 Real Est. Rev. 63 (2017).

Planning for Wildfire at the Wildland-Urban Interface: A Guide for Western Cities, 49 Urb. Law. 207 (2017).

Reviews and Reflections on Planned Communities, 49 Urb. Law. 483 (2017) (co-authored with Ronald S. Cope & Kimberly Freimuth).

Reviews and Reflections on Planned Communities, 41 ABA St. & Loc. L. News 9 (2017) (co-authored with Ronald S. Cope & Kimberly Freimuth).

The Battle Between Internet Exceptionalism and the Local Control of Land Use, 31 ABA Prob. & Prop. 36 (May/June 2017) (co-authored with Jamila Jefferson-Jones), reprinted in ABA GP Solo, Nov.–Dec. 2018 (one of three “Best of the ABA Sections” articles).

Other Publications

Opinion, Ending the Single-Family District isn't so Simple, Minneapolis Star-Trib., Jan. 2, 2019.

Opinion, West Must Develop Wildfire Ethic to Survive, S.F. Chron., Dec. 7, 2018.

Journal Editing

Editor-in-Chief, Thomson Reuters’ Real Estate Review (June, 2017-present).

Editor-in-Chief, ABA Journal on Affordable Housing and Community Development Law (June, 2019-present).