Market Urbanism

Liberalizing cities | From the bottom up

“Market Urbanism” refers to the synthesis of classical liberal economics and ethics (market), with an appreciation of the urban way of life and its benefits to society (urbanism). We advocate for the emergence of bottom up solutions to urban issues, as opposed to ones imposed from the top down.

More on “Empty Houses”

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I recently saw a Facebook post asserting that San Francisco has 30,000 vacant units, so therefore no market-rate housing should be built.   So I looked up Census data on these allegedly empty units. It is true, according to the Census Factfinder website, that there are 30,000 or so unoccupied … [Read more...]

Empty Houses, part 2

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The most interesting comment to my last post focused on one narrow issue: to what extent are vacant housing units second homes (and thus presumably less likely to be rented out) as opposed to units for rent/sale or held for other unknown reasons? Why does this matter?  Because one might argue … [Read more...]

Rent Control Again

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A blog post in Pacific Standard seeks to defend rent control- an idea that, as the author admits, is generally detested by economists. The author writes that "rent regulations give tenants a greater stake in their community and incentivize them to put time, energy, and even money into their … [Read more...]

YIMBYism: Its Not Just For Conservatives

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Last week, I posted about an attack on YIMBYs (activists who favor less zoning and more housing) that used the term "alt-right"; the authors of that blog post recently doubled down with a slightly more moderate op-ed that still tarred YIMBYs as  "aligned with conservative right-wing … [Read more...]

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