The Orange County Register’s Freedom Politics website (check out my rent control article FreePo published in March) features articles discussing two differing takes on road privatization from notable scholars Walter Block and Robert Poole. In Robert Poole’s article, he discusses the merits of the … [Read more...]
Rothbard the Urbanist Part 1: Public Education’s Role in Sprawl and Exclusion
I’ve been meaning to address the public education system’s complex role in land use patterns, and found that Murray Rothbard does a better job in his 1973 manifesto, For a New Liberty than I ever could. In summary, locally-funded public education is an engine of geographical segregation, which … [Read more...]
How Pricing Tolls Right Eliminates Congestion
Chris Bradford over at Austin Contrarian has been making some solid points in favor of congestion pricing. (here, here, here and here) Chris’s core argument in favor of congestion tolling is that: congestion pricing does more than relieve congestion. Congestion pricing tells us when a road needs … [Read more...]
The Nature of the Living City
Sandy Ikeda posted an abstract for a short essay he is contributing to a Festschrift honoring Jane Jacobs. He quite eloquently describes the nature of the living city: A city is not a man-made thing. Rather, it emerges from the actions of its inhabitants, who interact in … [Read more...]
Intro to Emergent Urbanism
Mathieu Helie has been writing at a blog he calls Emergent Urbanism. His most recent post is the first part of a series that will be published as an entire article entitled “The Principles of Emergent Urbanism” at International Journal of Architectural Research. This first part of the … [Read more...]
Undead Ideas: Rent Control
In these days of economists constantly debating the right way to revive the economy, it seems like there is no way to find consensus among economists. Economists don’t spend much time debating the issues they agree on, and to them, rent control is about as dead an issue as the earth revolving … [Read more...]
Stadtluft Macht Frei (city air makes one free)
Thomas Schmidt wrote a great article for LewRockwell.com that covers a lot of urbanist ground, with some help from a broad selection of Jane Jacobs’ work. Here’s a snippet: Though you might blame any number of obvious villains and historical processes for this, the name Ebenezer Howard would … [Read more...]
My Article at FreePo on the Resurrection of Rent Control
The Orange County Register’s new site, Freedom Politics just posted an article I wrote for them on rent control. Here’s a snippet: In these days of economists constantly debating the right way to revive the economy, it seems like there is no way to find consensus among economists. … [Read more...]