Free Cities
Blog
Government health care hurts minority communities
Racial health gap is about government, not race
Black Americans continue to lag behind their peers of other races on numerous measures of health, from life expectancy to prevalence of chronic disease. Progressives take these data points as proof of systemic racism. The only antidote is more government: higher subsidies for insurance through Obamacare’s exchanges, Medicaid expansion, even ...
Blog
True conservatives should welcome state rollback of housing restrictions
‘Local control’ still is government control
At the state level, the concurrent Republican values of “local control” and “limited government” can compete and even conflict. Republicans have long stood against unfunded state mandates on local government and onerous red tape on the private sector, as well we should. However, we should welcome state intervention to reduce ...
Blog
Read the latest on road diets
Bicycle ridership declining even in bike-friendly Portland
According to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, the share of Portland employees riding bicycles to work peaked at 7.2 percent in 2014. By 2019, it had fallen to 5.2 percent. The pandemic led to a surge in bicycle sales, and the share grew to 5.4 percent in 2020 but ...
Blog
Read about debate over SB 9 and 10
Misguided fear and loathing over relaxed zoning rules
SB 9 essentially eliminated single-family-only zoning by allowing property owners – on a “by right” basis that avoids subjective local reviews – to subdivide their single-family properties and build additional units on the land provided it meets all the pre-existing local setback and land-use conditions. It would allow up to ...
Blog
Read exclusive book excerpt
Cities in Crisis: How to fix municipal government budgeting
Read an excerpt from The Municipal Financial Crisis: A Framework for Understanding and Fixing Government Budgeting by Mark Moses (reprinted with permission). There was an alleged exchange in the 1950s between golfing great Sam Snead and baseball legend Ted Williams regarding which sport is more challenging. Ted pointed out that a ...
Agriculture
Urban Ag Promotes Healthy Food, Thriving Gardens
Urban Ag Promotes Healthy Food, Thriving Gardens MARCH 27, 2023 Watch as Steven Greenhut of the Free Cities Center tours City Slicker Farms in Oakland, an urban agriculture program that promotes access to healthy food, thriving gardens and urban green spaces.
Blog
How Eminent Domain Obliterated the Character of Cities
No city can possibly express its character – the many urban quirks and idiosyncrasies, as well as the strangely appealing grittiness and shining luxury that often coexist side-by-side – when government planners use the bulldozer to “improve” cities. Writing about the “wave of urban renewal that swept the world in ...
Blog
Urban gentrification beats alternative of deterioration
Of all places, Houston – famous for its minimal zoning – now faces a “gentrification” crisis
Free Cities
PRI Sacramento Policy Conference – Reimagining Our Cities
This is the final podcast recording of PRI’s Annual Sacramento Policy Conference. The theme of this panel discussion is “Reimagining Our Cities.”
Blog
Automated vehicles: Driving us toward dystopia or utopia?
Humanity may be a long way from allowing an Artificial Intelligence program to navigate a spacecraft from Earth to the planet Jupiter, a trip of over a half-billion miles, but we’re very close to giving AI control of every other mode of transportation we’ve built to date here on Earth. ...
Government health care hurts minority communities
Racial health gap is about government, not race
Black Americans continue to lag behind their peers of other races on numerous measures of health, from life expectancy to prevalence of chronic disease. Progressives take these data points as proof of systemic racism. The only antidote is more government: higher subsidies for insurance through Obamacare’s exchanges, Medicaid expansion, even ...
True conservatives should welcome state rollback of housing restrictions
‘Local control’ still is government control
At the state level, the concurrent Republican values of “local control” and “limited government” can compete and even conflict. Republicans have long stood against unfunded state mandates on local government and onerous red tape on the private sector, as well we should. However, we should welcome state intervention to reduce ...
Read the latest on road diets
Bicycle ridership declining even in bike-friendly Portland
According to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, the share of Portland employees riding bicycles to work peaked at 7.2 percent in 2014. By 2019, it had fallen to 5.2 percent. The pandemic led to a surge in bicycle sales, and the share grew to 5.4 percent in 2020 but ...
Read about debate over SB 9 and 10
Misguided fear and loathing over relaxed zoning rules
SB 9 essentially eliminated single-family-only zoning by allowing property owners – on a “by right” basis that avoids subjective local reviews – to subdivide their single-family properties and build additional units on the land provided it meets all the pre-existing local setback and land-use conditions. It would allow up to ...
Read exclusive book excerpt
Cities in Crisis: How to fix municipal government budgeting
Read an excerpt from The Municipal Financial Crisis: A Framework for Understanding and Fixing Government Budgeting by Mark Moses (reprinted with permission). There was an alleged exchange in the 1950s between golfing great Sam Snead and baseball legend Ted Williams regarding which sport is more challenging. Ted pointed out that a ...
Urban Ag Promotes Healthy Food, Thriving Gardens
Urban Ag Promotes Healthy Food, Thriving Gardens MARCH 27, 2023 Watch as Steven Greenhut of the Free Cities Center tours City Slicker Farms in Oakland, an urban agriculture program that promotes access to healthy food, thriving gardens and urban green spaces.
How Eminent Domain Obliterated the Character of Cities
No city can possibly express its character – the many urban quirks and idiosyncrasies, as well as the strangely appealing grittiness and shining luxury that often coexist side-by-side – when government planners use the bulldozer to “improve” cities. Writing about the “wave of urban renewal that swept the world in ...
Urban gentrification beats alternative of deterioration
Of all places, Houston – famous for its minimal zoning – now faces a “gentrification” crisis
PRI Sacramento Policy Conference – Reimagining Our Cities
This is the final podcast recording of PRI’s Annual Sacramento Policy Conference. The theme of this panel discussion is “Reimagining Our Cities.”
Automated vehicles: Driving us toward dystopia or utopia?
Humanity may be a long way from allowing an Artificial Intelligence program to navigate a spacecraft from Earth to the planet Jupiter, a trip of over a half-billion miles, but we’re very close to giving AI control of every other mode of transportation we’ve built to date here on Earth. ...
