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Blog
Read latest on CARE Courts
AB 1708 and Care Courts – A Step in the Right Direction
In the mid 1980s, I lived in Traverse City, Michigan, where I was a student at Great Lakes Maritime Academy. In the downtown, there was a diner eponymously named for its proprietor, head waitress, hostess, and friend to everyone, Stacy. Like a thousand diners in a thousand small towns, ...
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
Energy Reality Coming at California Fast
“Life comes at you fast,” said the insurance company ad campaign earlier this century. In California, energy reality is coming fast and it doesn’t inspire confidence in the future. With a few exceptions, official Sacramento, its groupthink mélange of elected officials and unelected bureaucrats who wield great political power, have ...
Blog
Has Criminal Justice Reform Gone Too Far?
Why is California experiencing more crime victimization?
The latest California crime trends in California are not encouraging. In 2022, Los Angeles had a sobering 2,106 more aggravated assaults compared to 2021, 41 percent of which were committed with weapons – for a total crime increase of over 11 percent. Police in the San Francisco Bay Area’s 15 most ...
Agriculture
Prop 12 upheld by SCOTUS: What will ruling mean for farmers and pork lovers?
There was no clear-cut verdict in the decision with the justices offering different opinions on the two-pronged argument brought by the National Pork Producers Council and the American Farm Bureau Federation. Attorneys for the NPPC and AFBF argued Prop 12 violated the “dormant commerce clause” and imposed more cost on ...
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 ...
Agriculture
Read latest on California agriculture
Meat production doesn’t have to be cruel
During a recent county fair in California, a little girl sold her show goat but, when faced with having to part with the animal, she and her mother chose to take the animal home during the night. The girl’s mother offered to repay the total amount of money collected to ...
Blog
Read the latest on the Chinese Communist Party
The People’s Republic of China “Police Stations” a Gulag of Transnational Repression
International police cooperation is a vital component of the rule of law. International organizations like INTERPOL, bilateral prisoner transfer treaties and international law enforcement cooperation help ensure that transnational criminals and fugitives can find no safe haven almost anywhere in the world. In addition to treaty signatories, it is common ...
Read latest on CARE Courts
AB 1708 and Care Courts – A Step in the Right Direction
In the mid 1980s, I lived in Traverse City, Michigan, where I was a student at Great Lakes Maritime Academy. In the downtown, there was a diner eponymously named for its proprietor, head waitress, hostess, and friend to everyone, Stacy. Like a thousand diners in a thousand small towns, ...
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 ...
Energy Reality Coming at California Fast
“Life comes at you fast,” said the insurance company ad campaign earlier this century. In California, energy reality is coming fast and it doesn’t inspire confidence in the future. With a few exceptions, official Sacramento, its groupthink mélange of elected officials and unelected bureaucrats who wield great political power, have ...
Has Criminal Justice Reform Gone Too Far?
Why is California experiencing more crime victimization?
The latest California crime trends in California are not encouraging. In 2022, Los Angeles had a sobering 2,106 more aggravated assaults compared to 2021, 41 percent of which were committed with weapons – for a total crime increase of over 11 percent. Police in the San Francisco Bay Area’s 15 most ...
Prop 12 upheld by SCOTUS: What will ruling mean for farmers and pork lovers?
There was no clear-cut verdict in the decision with the justices offering different opinions on the two-pronged argument brought by the National Pork Producers Council and the American Farm Bureau Federation. Attorneys for the NPPC and AFBF argued Prop 12 violated the “dormant commerce clause” and imposed more cost on ...
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 ...
Read latest on California agriculture
Meat production doesn’t have to be cruel
During a recent county fair in California, a little girl sold her show goat but, when faced with having to part with the animal, she and her mother chose to take the animal home during the night. The girl’s mother offered to repay the total amount of money collected to ...
Read the latest on the Chinese Communist Party
The People’s Republic of China “Police Stations” a Gulag of Transnational Repression
International police cooperation is a vital component of the rule of law. International organizations like INTERPOL, bilateral prisoner transfer treaties and international law enforcement cooperation help ensure that transnational criminals and fugitives can find no safe haven almost anywhere in the world. In addition to treaty signatories, it is common ...
