Free Cities
Blog
Shocker from Argentina: Free Markets Work in Housing, too
Shocker from Argentina: free markets work in housing, too William L. Anderson | October 18, 2024 Rent control is in the news both in California and elsewhere. In California, voters will decide Proposition 33, which would permit local governments to impose draconian rent controls and other restrictions on property owners ...
William L. Anderson
October 18, 2024
automation
The future is now: Robots take aim at urban gridlock
Machines already flip burgers, fry potatoes and slice avocados for lunch. Some even deliver meals. While it’s still a bit of a novelty, especially to those who see for the first time a food-bearing wheeled robot roll by them on the sidewalk, it appears they are about to become far ...
Kerry Jackson
October 11, 2024
Blog
Free cities in Honduras under attack by left-wing regime
The ruling, issued September 20, caps off a years-long campaign by the Central American country’s leftist President Xiomara Castro to outlaw the ZEDEs. “Justice for the Honduran people means not selling off our territory piecemeal or privatizing our sovereignty,” she wrote on X after the ruling. Since 2013, Honduras has ...
Sal Rodriguez
October 9, 2024
Blog
‘An idea so bad, Seattle hasn’t done it’
“Homelessness isn’t an identity,” said a full-page ad in the Aug. 25 issue of the Spokane’s Spokesman-Review newspaper. “Tell the City Council to VOTE NO on making their hardship a protected class.” The ad, sponsored by the Washington Business Properties Association, included contact info for the Spokane City Council, which ...
Jeremy Lott
October 4, 2024
Book
New Free Cities Book
Building Cities From Scratch
SACRAMENTO – The plan by a group of San Francisco Bay Area venture capitalists to build an entirely new city on ranch land in Solano County between the Bay Area and Sacramento has become one of the most controversial housing plans in Northern California in years. The East Solano Plan ...
Steven Greenhut
October 2, 2024
Blog
The strange hypocrisy of the ‘just build housing’ YIMBYs
The strange hypocrisy of the ‘just build housing’ YIMBYs Steven Greenhut | October 2, 2024 Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from the Free Cities Center’s forthcoming booklet (“Building New Cities from Scratch: America’s Long History of Urban Experimentation”) about new cities, which was prompted by California Forever’s proposal to ...
Steven Greenhut
September 27, 2024
Blog
Read the latest from PRI's Free Cities Center
Democratic plan would bring turmoil to housing markets
A century ago, the federal government involved itself hardly at all in housing, leaving that to state and local governments, and the market. The major exception was housing on federal land, including the District of Columbia, other territories and military bases. That changed in 1937 when, as part of President ...
John Seiler
September 26, 2024
Blog
Time for release: Can cities unshackle themselves from abusive union perk?
Time for release: Can cities unshackle themselves from abusive union perk? By D. Dowd Muska | September 20, 2024 The stewards for Los Angeles County’s health-science professionals are allowed as much as 1,200 hours each year in a controversial benefit known as “release time,” whereby union officials are released to ...
D. Dowd Muska
September 20, 2024
Blog
Learn about the problems with rent control
Rent-control madness is coming to California’s November ballot
Indeed, the so-called Justice for Renters Act features this simple text: “The state may not limit the right of any city, county, or city and county to maintain, enact or expand residential rent control.” If voters approve the initiative, it would repeal the Costa-Hawkins Rental Control Act. That 1995 law ...
Steven Greenhut
September 19, 2024
Blog
The three-bedroom solution to our ‘childless’ cities
The three-bedroom solution to our ‘childless’ cities by Kenneth Schrupp | September 13, 2024 Take a look around your city and think about a modal of American life for many people – college, rent, get married, start a family, work at a downtown employer, then retire and later move into ...
Kenneth Schrupp
September 13, 2024
Shocker from Argentina: Free Markets Work in Housing, too
Shocker from Argentina: free markets work in housing, too William L. Anderson | October 18, 2024 Rent control is in the news both in California and elsewhere. In California, voters will decide Proposition 33, which would permit local governments to impose draconian rent controls and other restrictions on property owners ...
The future is now: Robots take aim at urban gridlock
Machines already flip burgers, fry potatoes and slice avocados for lunch. Some even deliver meals. While it’s still a bit of a novelty, especially to those who see for the first time a food-bearing wheeled robot roll by them on the sidewalk, it appears they are about to become far ...
Free cities in Honduras under attack by left-wing regime
The ruling, issued September 20, caps off a years-long campaign by the Central American country’s leftist President Xiomara Castro to outlaw the ZEDEs. “Justice for the Honduran people means not selling off our territory piecemeal or privatizing our sovereignty,” she wrote on X after the ruling. Since 2013, Honduras has ...
‘An idea so bad, Seattle hasn’t done it’
“Homelessness isn’t an identity,” said a full-page ad in the Aug. 25 issue of the Spokane’s Spokesman-Review newspaper. “Tell the City Council to VOTE NO on making their hardship a protected class.” The ad, sponsored by the Washington Business Properties Association, included contact info for the Spokane City Council, which ...
New Free Cities Book
Building Cities From Scratch
SACRAMENTO – The plan by a group of San Francisco Bay Area venture capitalists to build an entirely new city on ranch land in Solano County between the Bay Area and Sacramento has become one of the most controversial housing plans in Northern California in years. The East Solano Plan ...
The strange hypocrisy of the ‘just build housing’ YIMBYs
The strange hypocrisy of the ‘just build housing’ YIMBYs Steven Greenhut | October 2, 2024 Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from the Free Cities Center’s forthcoming booklet (“Building New Cities from Scratch: America’s Long History of Urban Experimentation”) about new cities, which was prompted by California Forever’s proposal to ...
Read the latest from PRI's Free Cities Center
Democratic plan would bring turmoil to housing markets
A century ago, the federal government involved itself hardly at all in housing, leaving that to state and local governments, and the market. The major exception was housing on federal land, including the District of Columbia, other territories and military bases. That changed in 1937 when, as part of President ...
Time for release: Can cities unshackle themselves from abusive union perk?
Time for release: Can cities unshackle themselves from abusive union perk? By D. Dowd Muska | September 20, 2024 The stewards for Los Angeles County’s health-science professionals are allowed as much as 1,200 hours each year in a controversial benefit known as “release time,” whereby union officials are released to ...
Learn about the problems with rent control
Rent-control madness is coming to California’s November ballot
Indeed, the so-called Justice for Renters Act features this simple text: “The state may not limit the right of any city, county, or city and county to maintain, enact or expand residential rent control.” If voters approve the initiative, it would repeal the Costa-Hawkins Rental Control Act. That 1995 law ...
The three-bedroom solution to our ‘childless’ cities
The three-bedroom solution to our ‘childless’ cities by Kenneth Schrupp | September 13, 2024 Take a look around your city and think about a modal of American life for many people – college, rent, get married, start a family, work at a downtown employer, then retire and later move into ...