1. Announcements John Morris has started an alternative Facebook group called Flyover Urbanism: A Market Urbanist Group for Flyover Country 2. This Week at Market Urbanism Emily Hamilton Market Urbanism is Still underratedNew data keeps coming in that shows that increases in … [Read more...]
Archives for March 2017
Building A Better BART
In 2016, voters in San Francisco, Alameda and Contra Costa county approved a $3.5 Billion dollar bond to keep BART moving. Funds from the bond will be used to replace aging infrastructure throughout the system, but even three and half billion dollars will scarcely keep us running in place. … [Read more...]
Towards A Liberal Approach To Urban Form
It is because every individual knows little and, in particular, because we rarely know which of us knows best that we trust the independent and competitive efforts of many to induce the emergence of what we shall want when we see it.— Friedrich Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty Imagine the … [Read more...]
The Other Broken Window
My first article for TheFreemanOnline dealt with the “broken window fallacy.” But in the literature on social theory, there’s actually another important idea that also uses the metaphor of a “broken window.”In his comment on The Freeman’s Facebook page, Flavio Ortigao raised this point when he … [Read more...]
Market Urbanism Is Still Underrated
New data keeps coming in that shows that increases in housing supply tend to be followed by declining rental rates, even in the cities facing the highest demand. After a boom year for apartment construction in 2016, rents are falling in New York City, San Francisco, and Washington, DC.Median … [Read more...]
Market Urbanism MUsings March 24, 2017
1. Announcements I've posted a link on the homepage giving more info on the Market Urbanism programming at the upcoming FEE Conference, which is in Atlanta, June 15-17... The YIMBY party announced it will hold its 2nd annual conference, occurring this year in Oakland, July 13-16... And recently … [Read more...]
The Future Once Happened Here: New York, D.C., L.A., and the Fate of America’s Big Cities
There are many ways to tell the story of urban-policy failure. Economists have shown how rent control creates housing shortages, sociologists how welfare programs destroy poor communities, and urbanologists how urban planning can debilitate cities. In his book The Future Once Happened Here, … [Read more...]
Conflicting Affordable Housing Policies
Inclusionary zoning allows a few people to live in desirable, new construction buildings for much less than market rates. But it also carries with it a slew of perverse consequences. Because it's a tax on construction, it reduces supply. Inclusionary zoning also leads developers to build higher-end … [Read more...]