Free Cities
Blog
Northwest cities struggle to loosen their housing regulations
Northwest cities struggle to loosen their housing regulations By Sal Rodriguez February 3, 2023 Northwest cities struggle to loosen their housing regulations By Sal Rodriguez February 3, 2023 Across the country, local governments make it much harder than it ought to be to build housing. Some impose rigid land-use policies ...
Free Cities
Watch: How Art Can Improve Urban Life with Roberta Ahmanson
Watch as Steven Greenhut of PRI's Free Cities Center discusses how art can improve the quality of life in urban centers.
Blog
Are Western cities ready for renewable skyscrapers?
Every so often a product comes along that presents itself as a “sustainable” innovation, yet has compelling appeal even if sustainability isn’t someone’s top priority. Of course, sustainability has become something of an overused buzzword, but it generally refers to a production process that doesn’t deplete natural resources or damage the environment. ...
Blog
Public Employee Unions Are Obstacle to Urban Progress
Public Employee Unions Are Obstacle to Urban Progress A Free Cities Center Interview One of the key ways to improve urban life is to improve the level of public services offered in cities. People who flee some premier city for the suburbs or rural life will typically point to their ...
Blog
Private options could reverse transit ridership drops
One way to measure a city’s greatness is the ease of getting around: Does its public transit system improve or undermine its quality of life? In the 20th century, New York, London, Paris, Chicago, Berlin and Chicago were generally held in high regard for efficiently and quickly moving people through ...
California
Steven Greenhut – Where has all the water gone?
Our guest this week is Steve Greenhut, PRI director of its Free Cities Center and the author of PRI’s book Winning the Water Wars.
Blog
Transfer Taxes and Eviction Bans Cripple Housing Growth
Transfer Taxes and Eviction Bans Cripple Housing Growth By Kenneth Schrupp January 20, 2023 While the rest of the nation experiences slowing rent growth and even rent declines, rents are projected to increase in California at the maximum legal level as the state’s enduring housing shortage more than offset the ...
Blog
Bullet train won’t improve urban transportation
(image courtesy California High-Speed Rail Commission) Even on its best day, California’s high-speed rail project was always going to struggle to deliver on its grandiose promises – a best day that was unfortunately Nov. 4, 2008. That was the day California voters approved a modest and fantastical version of what ...
Blog
Future cities could be beacons of innovation and hope
Futurist imaginings of what sort of world awaits humanity often embrace extreme scenarios, ranging from George Jetson’s utopia to George Orwell’s nightmare. They also tend to be wildly inaccurate. With that in mind – and not to stray too far into the territory of unrealistic optimism or excessive pessimism – ...
Blog
Urban flight: Removing cars won’t revive our cities
As happened in the 1960s and 70s, America is witnessing a great exodus from some, but not all, of its cities. This time, even West Coast cities, with their sublime weather and ports on the Pacific Ocean, also are seeing residents flee paradise. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, in ...
Northwest cities struggle to loosen their housing regulations
Northwest cities struggle to loosen their housing regulations By Sal Rodriguez February 3, 2023 Northwest cities struggle to loosen their housing regulations By Sal Rodriguez February 3, 2023 Across the country, local governments make it much harder than it ought to be to build housing. Some impose rigid land-use policies ...
Watch: How Art Can Improve Urban Life with Roberta Ahmanson
Watch as Steven Greenhut of PRI's Free Cities Center discusses how art can improve the quality of life in urban centers.
Are Western cities ready for renewable skyscrapers?
Every so often a product comes along that presents itself as a “sustainable” innovation, yet has compelling appeal even if sustainability isn’t someone’s top priority. Of course, sustainability has become something of an overused buzzword, but it generally refers to a production process that doesn’t deplete natural resources or damage the environment. ...
Public Employee Unions Are Obstacle to Urban Progress
Public Employee Unions Are Obstacle to Urban Progress A Free Cities Center Interview One of the key ways to improve urban life is to improve the level of public services offered in cities. People who flee some premier city for the suburbs or rural life will typically point to their ...
Private options could reverse transit ridership drops
One way to measure a city’s greatness is the ease of getting around: Does its public transit system improve or undermine its quality of life? In the 20th century, New York, London, Paris, Chicago, Berlin and Chicago were generally held in high regard for efficiently and quickly moving people through ...
Steven Greenhut – Where has all the water gone?
Our guest this week is Steve Greenhut, PRI director of its Free Cities Center and the author of PRI’s book Winning the Water Wars.
Transfer Taxes and Eviction Bans Cripple Housing Growth
Transfer Taxes and Eviction Bans Cripple Housing Growth By Kenneth Schrupp January 20, 2023 While the rest of the nation experiences slowing rent growth and even rent declines, rents are projected to increase in California at the maximum legal level as the state’s enduring housing shortage more than offset the ...
Bullet train won’t improve urban transportation
(image courtesy California High-Speed Rail Commission) Even on its best day, California’s high-speed rail project was always going to struggle to deliver on its grandiose promises – a best day that was unfortunately Nov. 4, 2008. That was the day California voters approved a modest and fantastical version of what ...
Future cities could be beacons of innovation and hope
Futurist imaginings of what sort of world awaits humanity often embrace extreme scenarios, ranging from George Jetson’s utopia to George Orwell’s nightmare. They also tend to be wildly inaccurate. With that in mind – and not to stray too far into the territory of unrealistic optimism or excessive pessimism – ...
Urban flight: Removing cars won’t revive our cities
As happened in the 1960s and 70s, America is witnessing a great exodus from some, but not all, of its cities. This time, even West Coast cities, with their sublime weather and ports on the Pacific Ocean, also are seeing residents flee paradise. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, in ...
