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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 ...
Blog

Ultimate Solution to CRT: Parental Choice

ULTIMATE SOLUTION TO CRT: PARENTAL CHOICE By Lance Izumi January 25, 2023 In the new Pacific Research Institute book The Great Parent Revolt: How Parents and Grassroots Leaders are Fighting Critical Race Theory in America’s Schools, which I co-authored with Wenyuan Wu and McKenzie Richards, we tell the stories of ...
Blog

Juvenile Justice in California – Nowhere to go

On January 4th 2023, Gavin Boston was shot and killed while working as a security guard at the Japan Center Mall in San Francisco’s Japan Town neighborhood.    Shortly after, San Francisco police department arrested two juveniles aged 14 and 15 as the suspects.   The 15 year-old was identified ...
Blog

State Budget Update: Budget Deficit Could Be Far Worse Than Initially Thought

While noting that the Newsom plan does some good things like continuing to pay down debt and making modest budget cuts, PRI senior fellow in business and economics Dr. Wayne Winegarden wrote of the proposal in the Orange County Register that, “it avoids some of the tough budget choices these ...
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 ...
Agriculture

CARB’s plan to covert farms to organic practices may push food producers out of California

When hunting for fresh produce, we are taught to look for the “ideal” fruit or vegetable. Sweet corn cobs have their husks unceremoniously pulled down, apples are squeezed and scrutinized, onions are sniffed and scoured for the tightest skin, all in the name of finding the “best” version available. A ...
Blog

Would You Like An Apple Pie With That? No Thanks, I Can’t Afford It

Less than two days before California’s Fast Food Accountability and Standards Recovery Act was to become law – on Jan. 1 – Sacramento Superior Court Judge Shelleyanne W.L. Chang placed a hold on the legislation, temporarily restraining the state “from implementing, enforcing, or taking any other action to effectuate Assembly ...
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

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 ...
Blog

Ultimate Solution to CRT: Parental Choice

ULTIMATE SOLUTION TO CRT: PARENTAL CHOICE By Lance Izumi January 25, 2023 In the new Pacific Research Institute book The Great Parent Revolt: How Parents and Grassroots Leaders are Fighting Critical Race Theory in America’s Schools, which I co-authored with Wenyuan Wu and McKenzie Richards, we tell the stories of ...
Blog

Juvenile Justice in California – Nowhere to go

On January 4th 2023, Gavin Boston was shot and killed while working as a security guard at the Japan Center Mall in San Francisco’s Japan Town neighborhood.    Shortly after, San Francisco police department arrested two juveniles aged 14 and 15 as the suspects.   The 15 year-old was identified ...
Blog

State Budget Update: Budget Deficit Could Be Far Worse Than Initially Thought

While noting that the Newsom plan does some good things like continuing to pay down debt and making modest budget cuts, PRI senior fellow in business and economics Dr. Wayne Winegarden wrote of the proposal in the Orange County Register that, “it avoids some of the tough budget choices these ...
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 ...
Agriculture

CARB’s plan to covert farms to organic practices may push food producers out of California

When hunting for fresh produce, we are taught to look for the “ideal” fruit or vegetable. Sweet corn cobs have their husks unceremoniously pulled down, apples are squeezed and scrutinized, onions are sniffed and scoured for the tightest skin, all in the name of finding the “best” version available. A ...
Blog

Would You Like An Apple Pie With That? No Thanks, I Can’t Afford It

Less than two days before California’s Fast Food Accountability and Standards Recovery Act was to become law – on Jan. 1 – Sacramento Superior Court Judge Shelleyanne W.L. Chang placed a hold on the legislation, temporarily restraining the state “from implementing, enforcing, or taking any other action to effectuate Assembly ...
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 – ...
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