Jeff was an early stage employee at Lyft before moving to on-demand consumer logistics platform Postmates. Along the way, Jeff has become increasingly interested in urban economics and periodically contributes to housing reform efforts in the Bay Area through the region’s YIMBY organizations.
Jeff is a regular contributor to Market Urbanism where he writes about the ways in which markets, institutions, and technology are reshaping our cities. He also publishes political commentary at Tech for Housing.
Read Jeff’s contributions here.
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Jeff Fong – Market Urbanism
Liberalizing cities | From the bottom up
Anti poverty programs have been taking center stage as the 2020 Democratic primary heats up. Proposals from Kamala Harris and Corey Booker target high housing costs for renters and make for an interesting set of ideas. These plans, however, have major shortcomings and fail to address the fundamental problem of supply constraints in high cost […]
The post Democratic Candidates on Housing appeared first on Market Urbanism.
Five years ago everything in California felt like a giant (land use policy) dumpster fire. Fast forward to today we live in a completely different world. Yimby activists have pushed policy, swayed elections, and dramatically shifted the overton window on California housing policy. And through this process of pushing change, Yimbyism itself has evolved as […]
The post Yimbyism: The Evolution of an Idea appeared first on Market Urbanism.
There’s been an ongoing debate in urbanist circles about whether autonomous vehicles (AVs) will damn us to perpetual sprawl and super commuting. I don’t believe that they will. In the first place, the business conditions under which AVs could conceivably induce more sprawl are unlikely. And in the second, there are numerous other factors that […]
The post Why Autonomous Vehicles != Endless Sprawl appeared first on Market Urbanism.
The Public Wealth of Cities by Dag Detter and Stefan Fölster proposes a series of reforms to improve municipal finances. The authors lay out guidelines for creating urban wealth funds (UWFs) and argue that financial stability is key to societal success. Detter and Fölster first call for basic financial competency. According to the authors, most […]
The post Book Review: The Public Wealth of Cities appeared first on Market Urbanism.
During an urbanist twitter free-for-all last week, the thoroughly awesome term “liberty machines” was used to describe the virtues of the car. The claim was made that cars let individuals go wherever they want, whenever they want and are therefore a ‘freedom enhancing’ form of transit. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this argument in […]
The post Liberty Machines™ appeared first on Market Urbanism.
Richard Rothstein’s “The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America” should be required reading for YIMBYs and urbanists of any ideological stripe. Rothstein argues that housing segregation in the US has been the intentional outcome of policy decisions made at every level of government and that the idea of segregation […]
The post The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America appeared first on Market Urbanism.
Some people accept the idea that restrictive land use policy is just as bad as all the research suggests, but persist in supporting the status quo. They argue that if a community chooses to regulate its built environment, that choice should be respected as having moral weight because it’s the outcome of a democratic process. […]
The post People Over Process: Why Democracy Doesn’t Justify Exclusion appeared first on Market Urbanism.
Caos Planejado, in conjunction with Editora BEI/ArqFuturo, recently published A Guide to Urban Development (Guia de Gestão Urbana) by Anthony Ling. The book offers best practices for urban design and although it was written for a Brazilian audience, many of its recommendations have universal applicability. For the time being, the book is only available in […]
The post A Guide to Urban Development [Guia de Gestão Urbana] appeared first on Market Urbanism.