Free Cities
Blog
Read latest from Free Cities Center
San Diego offers pragmatic model to restore downtown life
According to Neighborhood Scout, a data-driven organization that provides detailed insights into local crime rates at a far more granular level than national statistics, San Diego has 4 violent crimes and 19.3 property crimes per 1,000 residents. In contrast, Los Angeles has 8.4 violent crimes and 24.6 property crimes per ...
Book
New PRI Book Release
State Planners Focus Too Much on Social Engineering Rather Than Transportation Engineering
NEW PRI BOOK RELEASE PUTTING CUSTOMERS FIRST Re-Envisioning Our Approach to Transportation Planning Steven Greenhut State Planners Focus Too Much on Social Engineering Rather Than Transportation Engineering Focus Should Be Easing Gridlock, Not Prodding People Out of Cars State and local transportation officials are planning transportation projects around social engineering, ...
California
Watch PRI webinar
Watch: How Do We Stop California’s Outmigration Problem with Dr. Lee Ohanian
Watch Hoover Institution senior fellow and UCLA professor Dr. Lee Ohanian discuss California’s growing outmigration problem with Dr. Wayne Winegarden, PRI senior fellow in business and economics. They discuss cost of living problems worsened by poor state public policies that are increasing housing costs across the state and worsening quality ...
Blog
Private cities bypass ossified governments. Will California follow?
Private cities bypass ossified governments. Will California follow? By Thibault Serlet California’s public discourse about urbanism has become extremely pessimistic. A glimpse into some of the large-scale private cities – generally known as Special Economic Zones, or SEZs – popping up in developing countries might offer us some well-needed hope. ...
Blog
Will we see the return of redevelopment agencies?
Redevelopment failed cities, but keeps trying for a comeback
This column was originally published in the American Spectator. Say what you will about Jerry Brown, but I’ll always think fondly of him because of his crowning achievement in his more-recent stint as governor. In 2011, he eliminated the state’s noxious, property-rights-destroying redevelopment agencies. He didn’t axe these locally controlled agencies entirely ...
Blog
Read latest from Free Cities Center
Sense of community makes city living worth the hassles
It took my parents a long time to understand why I loved Philadelphia. Their confusion was understandable. They’d grown up and then lived in small Kansas towns pretty much their entire adult lives. I’d been raised in those same towns, went to college there, and then spent the first decade ...
Blog
Read latest from Free Cities Center
New cities offer unpredictable but exciting urban future
Although it was thoroughly lost amid his travails as the most prosecuted ex-president in American history, on March 4, in a video released on his campaign website, Donald Trump proposed a national contest for urban developers to submit designs for new “Freedom Cities,” with 10 winning designs to be allocated federal land ...
Blog
City Hall should stay out of the way of home-based businesses
City Hall should stay out of the way of home-based businesses Home-based businesses have long been a viable means by which people support themselves. It’s essential that governments make it easier, not harder, for cottage industries to thrive. The importance and prevalence of home-based businesses “For most of human history, ...
Blog
Read latest on state's misguided transportation priorities
‘Induced demand’ a poor excuse not to build highways
Economists are known for different worldviews from others, and the gap usually is wide between economists and urban planners. Economist Thomas Sowell famously has said, “There are no solutions, only tradeoffs,” thinking that most planners reject out of hand. One contentious issue separating economists (or at least those that believe ...
Blog
Newsom’s housing bonds: Another failed-policy redux
According to the governor’s announcement, among other things the initiative would, “Amend the Mental Health Services Act (MHSA), leading to at least $1 billion every year in local assistance for housing and residential services for people experiencing mental illness and substance use disorders, and allowing MHSA funds to serve people with ...
Read latest from Free Cities Center
San Diego offers pragmatic model to restore downtown life
According to Neighborhood Scout, a data-driven organization that provides detailed insights into local crime rates at a far more granular level than national statistics, San Diego has 4 violent crimes and 19.3 property crimes per 1,000 residents. In contrast, Los Angeles has 8.4 violent crimes and 24.6 property crimes per ...
New PRI Book Release
State Planners Focus Too Much on Social Engineering Rather Than Transportation Engineering
NEW PRI BOOK RELEASE PUTTING CUSTOMERS FIRST Re-Envisioning Our Approach to Transportation Planning Steven Greenhut State Planners Focus Too Much on Social Engineering Rather Than Transportation Engineering Focus Should Be Easing Gridlock, Not Prodding People Out of Cars State and local transportation officials are planning transportation projects around social engineering, ...
Watch PRI webinar
Watch: How Do We Stop California’s Outmigration Problem with Dr. Lee Ohanian
Watch Hoover Institution senior fellow and UCLA professor Dr. Lee Ohanian discuss California’s growing outmigration problem with Dr. Wayne Winegarden, PRI senior fellow in business and economics. They discuss cost of living problems worsened by poor state public policies that are increasing housing costs across the state and worsening quality ...
Private cities bypass ossified governments. Will California follow?
Private cities bypass ossified governments. Will California follow? By Thibault Serlet California’s public discourse about urbanism has become extremely pessimistic. A glimpse into some of the large-scale private cities – generally known as Special Economic Zones, or SEZs – popping up in developing countries might offer us some well-needed hope. ...
Will we see the return of redevelopment agencies?
Redevelopment failed cities, but keeps trying for a comeback
This column was originally published in the American Spectator. Say what you will about Jerry Brown, but I’ll always think fondly of him because of his crowning achievement in his more-recent stint as governor. In 2011, he eliminated the state’s noxious, property-rights-destroying redevelopment agencies. He didn’t axe these locally controlled agencies entirely ...
Read latest from Free Cities Center
Sense of community makes city living worth the hassles
It took my parents a long time to understand why I loved Philadelphia. Their confusion was understandable. They’d grown up and then lived in small Kansas towns pretty much their entire adult lives. I’d been raised in those same towns, went to college there, and then spent the first decade ...
Read latest from Free Cities Center
New cities offer unpredictable but exciting urban future
Although it was thoroughly lost amid his travails as the most prosecuted ex-president in American history, on March 4, in a video released on his campaign website, Donald Trump proposed a national contest for urban developers to submit designs for new “Freedom Cities,” with 10 winning designs to be allocated federal land ...
City Hall should stay out of the way of home-based businesses
City Hall should stay out of the way of home-based businesses Home-based businesses have long been a viable means by which people support themselves. It’s essential that governments make it easier, not harder, for cottage industries to thrive. The importance and prevalence of home-based businesses “For most of human history, ...
Read latest on state's misguided transportation priorities
‘Induced demand’ a poor excuse not to build highways
Economists are known for different worldviews from others, and the gap usually is wide between economists and urban planners. Economist Thomas Sowell famously has said, “There are no solutions, only tradeoffs,” thinking that most planners reject out of hand. One contentious issue separating economists (or at least those that believe ...
Newsom’s housing bonds: Another failed-policy redux
According to the governor’s announcement, among other things the initiative would, “Amend the Mental Health Services Act (MHSA), leading to at least $1 billion every year in local assistance for housing and residential services for people experiencing mental illness and substance use disorders, and allowing MHSA funds to serve people with ...
