I just read a law review article complaining that some white areas in integrated southern counties were trying to secede from integrated school systems (thus ensuring that the countywide systems become almost all-black while the seceding areas get to have white schools), and it occurred to me that … [Read more...]
Archives for October 2016
Market Urbanism MUsings October 28, 2016
1. This week at Market Urbansim: ‘Who better to determine local needs than property owners and concerned citizens themselves?’ by Michael HamiltonInstead, land-use regulations can, and often are, used as cudgels against disfavored groups or individuals. Issues of personal taste—yard … [Read more...]
Episode 05: Samuel Zipp and Nathan Storring on Vital Little Plans
This week on the Market Urbanism Podcast, I chat with Samuel Zipp and Nathan Storring on the wonderful new volume Vital Little Plans: The Short Works of Jane Jacobs. From Jacobs' McCarthy-era defense of unorthodox thinking to snippets of her unpublished history of humanity, the book is a … [Read more...]
Donald Shoup Takes San Francisco
Every so often during his tenure as mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg tried to push through congestion pricing, in which drivers would have to pay to use city streets in Midtown and Lower Manhattan. That’s a popular solution to chronic overcrowding but, like drinking coffee to try to … [Read more...]
‘Who better to determine local needs than property owners and concerned citizens themselves?’
The Cato Institute’s Vanessa Brown Calder is skeptical of the Obama administration’s suggestion that state governments can play a role in liberalizing land-use regulation, a policy area usually dominated by local governments. In an otherwise thoughtful post responding to a variety of proposals, she … [Read more...]
Market Urbanism MUsings October 21, 2016
1. This week at Market Urbansim: The Invisible City by Sandy IkedaIt is this: A city—especially a great one—cannot really be seen. Paradoxically, the closest we can come to actually seeing one is through the imagination. Otherwise, it’s invisible. Moreover, if you can fully comprehend … [Read more...]
The Invisible City
Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities is a short, often wonderful but consistently enigmatic (at least to me) novel about an extended conversation between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan. Marco tells the Khan a series of tales about fantastical cities he’s perhaps only imagined.I’ve always … [Read more...]
Market Urbanism MUsings October 14, 2016
1. This week at Market Urbansim: Markets As Cities by Sandy IkedaThere is a deep affinity between cities and markets, and indeed between cities and liberty. (As the old saying goes, “City air makes you free.”) Cities aren’t merely convenient locations for markets; a living city (which I’ll … [Read more...]