Stephen Smith

I graduated Spring 2010 from Georgetown undergrad, with an entirely unrelated and highly regrettable major that might have made a little more sense if I actually wanted to become an international trade lawyer, but which alas seems good for little else. I still do most of the tweeting for Market Urbanism Stephen had previously written on urbanism at Forbes.com. Articles Profile; Reason Magazine, and Next City

Joined: May 21, 2025
Articles: 282
Comments: 41

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Some notes on slums and free markets

Recently I’ve been seeing a lot of articles about slums (the NYT on Gurgaon, India, and the Guardian on Cairo), and inevitably the phrase “free market” gets thrown around. And as it should – so-called “slums” often have very minimal active governance, and as a result they often have very dynamic economies and upwardly mobile citizens (something even the New York Times and Guardian, two very liberal papers, recognize). But it’s lazy to equate them with the free market, and unfortunately I see a lot of people doing that. One problem with slums, from a free market point of view, is that only certain investments are secure. People and their houses (well, at least the owner-occupied ones) are the safest, especially in democracies like Brazil and India. Though of course there are stories of people’s homes in slums being demolished or taken by the government without compensation, it’s my understanding that this is becoming rarer as slum dwellers grow in number and political power. Residents are likely to get titles in some Hernando de Soto-inspired regularization scheme, so people invest in their homes. Residential areas harden as sheet metal turns into bricks, houses get proper roofs, and we start to see two- and three-story structures. Infrastructure, however, is another story. While many newspapers I think generally exaggerate the lack of services (I refuse to believe the Times’ assertion, for example, that Gurgaon only has employer-funded mass transit – there must certainly be share taxi/small bus services, or at least motortaxis), there does appear to be a real lack. The poorer areas often have open sewers, and running water in homes is rare. Many critics take this as evidence that infrastructure – paved roads, mass transit, electricity, waste collection, water – will not be adequately provided for in a free market, which […]

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Where have I been?

I (Stephen) have been focused on trying to find a job recently (speaking of which – if anyone’s got any freelance or permanent work or knows of anyone who might, I’m interested! [email protected]), so as you can see, posting has dropped off. Adam also hasn’t been posting much lately, but, as you may have noticed, we have a new blogger – market urbanists, meet Emily Washington! She’s already posted a few articles, and hopefully we’ll see many more. As for me, you can still read my writing, but you’ll have to accept it in 140-character chunks. Adam gave me the password to the Market Urbanism Twitter account (@marketurbanism) a few weeks ago with the idea that I would post links there and then collect them every few days in a post. I started tweeting a lot more than I though I would, though, and have been too lazy to collect them in a post. But, since I post about a dozen links a day there’s a lot of content, and even if you don’t use Twitter you can still check it out. Unfortunately, though, the webpage and RSS feed include what are sort of conversations with other users – basically any message that starts with an “@” sign, though not things that start with “RT @” – so you’ll get a lot of tweets that are just my half of the conversation with someone else. I don’t have a solution for this in the RSS feed (anybody know how to filter them out of the RSS feed, as Twitter would if you were following them?), but if you sign up and make a Twitter account and “follow” @marketurbanism, you’ll see the tweets on your twitter.com homepage as they were intended, without all the annoying half-crosstalk – it’s free and easy, […]

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Obama administration sells transit out to protectionists (again)

I’m not sure how I missed this (actually, I have an idea – more on that in a minute), but back in February the Federal Transit Administration issued the following warning about strengthened “Buy America” transit procurement protectionism: Congress and the Obama Administration asked Americans to provide $787 billion to help avoid an economic catastrophe and restore and modernize America’s infrastructure. In return, the Federal Government asks recipients of Recovery Act funds to be held accountable to the American public by using these resources to maximize opportunities to put Americans back to work and to support our domestic manufacturing industry. In order to support this goal, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) will not consider any requests for a public interest waiver of FTA’s Buy America regulation for Recovery Act projects. If issued, such waivers would allow recipients of Recovery Act funds to procure steel, iron, or manufactured products, including rolling stock, that are not produced or manufactured in the United States. I will not waive Buy America for Recovery Act projects because such action would undermine the very purpose and intent of the Recovery Act—to preserve and create jobs in America. In addition, FTA will continue to carefully scrutinize requests for waivers based on non-availability to determine whether suitable American-made alternatives exist, and if none do, whether the funds can be used in an alternative manner that fulfills the goals of the Recovery Act. Similarly, FTA will examine requests for cost-differential waivers to determine whether the cost savings justifies the loss of American jobs, especially in critical manufacturing sectors. By necessity, FTA will extend existing, standing waivers—for products exempted by the Federal Acquisition Regulation, microprocessors and microcomputers, and small purchases—to Recovery Act-funded procurements, although I encourage recipients to use their best efforts to carry out the intent of Congress and the Obama Administration […]

corruption, Transportation

Five union work rules that harm transit productivity

Since Alon’s comment a few weeks ago that union work rules, not wages and benefits, are the real problem with labor unions at America’s transit authorities, I’ve been looking into the matter, which seems to be something that a lot of transit boosters don’t like to talk about. It’s an uncomfortable subject for two reason: 1) urban planners and unions have an ideological affinity, and 2) it’s hard to lobby for increased subsidies for transit when you admit that you’re making poor use of the money you already have. But despite planners’ reticence to talk about the problem, it needs to be addressed. Throwing money around is what governments do best, and while it might be an easy solution to problems in the short run, the money is running out. Some will surely quibble that we can afford to raise taxes and do more deficit spending, especially for something as vital as transit, but whether or not that’s true, the fact is that voters are increasingly doubting that it is, and so politicians are going to become stingier about doling out money for transit. Anyway, the most obvious area for savings is in actual wages and benefits, but many mainstream conservative and libertarian publications have written a lot about this issue, so I want to focus on just inefficient work rules. These are rules that are written into union contracts hashed out in a political process, and management doesn’t have the authority to overturn them. I found surprisingly little on the issue in the academic literature, but there’s plenty on it in newspapers, and so here’s a round-up of the major issues that I found with various American transit unions. The list is by no means comprehensive – either of all the cities that have these problems, or even of […]

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What good is form-based zoning when you just keep everything the same?

“Form-based zoning” is something that I’ve never entirely understood. It’s always explained to me as regulating form not use, and generally the example given is that form-based zoning will require certain design aesthetics but not dictate whether something is used as a residence or a place of business or whatever. And instead of setbacks, FAR requirements, etc., it will dictate overall size (I guess with a height limit?). But while it seems marginally more pleasant to mandate parking lots go behind buildings, it doesn’t seem to me like zoning by “form” is inherently better than the status quo American planning tools. A planner can use a Euclidean designation to accomodate high-density development just as easily as he can use a form-based code to force suburbia on an area. In other words, the devil’s in the details, and just moving to a form-based code doesn’t really change anything if you don’t also allow for more growth overall After reading this paper (abridged ungated version as a .pdf here) on parking in Miami’s new form-based code – “Miami 21,” implemented in 2009 – I fear that I was right, and that form-based codes will probably end up looking just like the old ones: In general, there are minimal parking requirement changes in the Miami 21 form-based code. Lower minimum requirements or the establishment of appropriate parking maximums in existing, compact urban neighborhoods would protect the existing character of these areas and encourage the development of context-sensitive development that promotes walkability. Yet the proposed parking requirements in the Miami 21 form-based code still include relatively high minimums, even in the more urban transects This is partially a critique of DPZ’s SmartCode, which does not reduce parking requirements signi?cantly even in the more urban transects. Considering the level of public transportation service in its […]

rent control

“The Joys of Staying Put,” or “The Joys of Rent Control”?

The New York Times is unusually good at ignoring economic forces at play in land use and transport markets, but I think this piece called “The Joys of Staying Put” by Constance Rosenblum takes the cake. Here’s a quote: New Yorkers typically move a lot. Prompted by the arrival of a partner or a child, or money that buys more space or a nicer neighborhood, or simply an appetite for change, some New Yorkers move house every year or two. According to census estimates for 2009, 650,000 New Yorkers lived in a different house or apartment within the city than in the previous year. But a few stay put, immune to the call of a larger apartment or a swankier neighborhood. They plant themselves in the same place for decades or for their entire adult lives. Some have been in the same apartment since graduating from college. Shortly after sinking roots in the city, they find a place that suits them and don’t budge. Are they really “immune” to anything, or did they just make a good call a couple decades ago by not moving out of their rent-stabilized unit and are now responding rationally to price incentives? While the author does admit that a lot of the people have rents fixed by law (“you hear the words ‘rent-stabilized’ a lot”), the whole implication seems to be that there’s something about these people beyond the rent controls, like they’re some sort of special breed of über-New Yorkers. And while anyone who knows anything about real estate will realize that the places she’s describing must be rent stabilized (under $1,000/mo. for a 1-bedroom in Greenwich Village, for example), she never mentions anyone in particular as being rent stabilized. So for example we hear about Esther Cohen, who’s paying “just about $1,000” for […]

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NYC tries to fine its way out of the laws of supply and demand

Having failed to deregulate New York City’s highly restrictive taxicab market, it looks like City Council and Bloomberg are opting for the populist reaction to NYC cabdrivers’ frequent refusal to take you anywhere outside Manhattan and, if you’re lucky, northwest Brooklyn: fines. Quoteth the Wall Street Journal: The bill passed Wednesday increases the fine for a cabbie’s first offense from $350 to $500. If he gets caught again within the next two years, he’ll have to pay $1,000—double the current fine. The bill also adds a $1,000 fine for the third offense, on top of the license revocation already required. Unfortunately for New York, I think it’s gonna take a lot more than a few hundred more dollars in fines to have any effect on this problem. And if it does somehow work, then I fear that it will actually be counterproductive and encourage cab drivers to discriminate. They won’t even bother pulling over for people think aren’t traveling within Manhattan for fear of either having to take them or be fined – in other words, it will become even harder for people of color, who are less likely to live in Manhattan, to hail cabs. And then there’s this gem from the hack union, which reminds me of David Yassky’s “the city should be circumspect about substituting its judgment for the judgment of business people” comment: Bhairavi Desai, the director of the Taxi Workers Alliance, a drivers’ group, said she was disappointed in the vote. Drivers sometimes refuse to take people to faraway places because they’ll get stuck in traffic before they can get another fare, she said. She said the city should find an “economic solution” to the problem. “Otherwise, you’re just scapegoating people,” Ms. Desai said. It’s interesting that she even admits that there is even a problem – I guess […]

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Alon Levy has a blog! Or: How Florida’s HSR money is being wasted in New York

Longtime commenter Alon Levy…has a blog! So far there’s only one post up – a critique of one $295 million “HSR” grant for New York, money that was originally intended for Florida – but it’s a good one, and I recommend everyone add the blog to their feed readers. He gets into the nitty-gritty details of New York City’s rail network, and comes to the following conclusion: So the $300 million the state applied to has no relevance to either Amtrak or LIRR traffic. The only use is to let Amtrak use the southern tunnel pair to Penn Station without conflicts. Since Amtrak can already use the northern tunnels without any conflict apart from the one mentioned above, it is a pure nice-to-have. It would be good for operational flexibility if the tunnels were at capacity, but they aren’t: total LIRR plus Amtrak traffic into Penn Station peaks at 37 trains between 8 and 9 am, where the capacity of the tunnels is about 50 – and as with Hunterspoint traffic, Penn Station LIRR traffic will go down once East Side Access opens. I always thought that Obama’s high-speed rail strategy was absurd and any money spent on HSR-only infrastructure would be wasted, so I was at least marginally pleased when Rick Scott gave up Florida’s money and it was sent to the Northeast Corridor. But after reading this, and especially Alon’s suggestion earlier in the post that the money would be better spent on a similar project in Brooklyn that would benefit the MTA’s 3 and 5 trains (see comments), I’m beginning to wonder if spending the money on inter- and not intracity rail is the bigger problem. While regular intercity service might be more practical than HSR service (which, somehow, the Obama administration still claims is the goal), […]

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Laneway housing in Vancouver and beyond

Vancouver holds a special place in most urbanists’ heart – a sort of supercharged version of Portland, with its stunning skyline and bold embrace of density and transit. In addition to the glassy forest of skyscrapers, it also passed a law enabling laneway housing under former mayor Sam Sullivan’s EcoDensity initiative. Sullivan was pretty controversial, but he never even came up for a second vote after Peter Ladner launched a party coup and then went on to lose the election anyway. As a result, it doesn’t look like the laneway housing rules have been revised, which is a shame, since as Vancouver architect Graham Barron (who has an excellent blog on development in Vancouver) writes, there are some problems: The objective of the infill design guideline is to encourage the retention of existing buildings, but the guideline’s own side yard setback makes this nearly impossible. In practice, this means that the vast majority of developers of these lots demolish the existing building and construct a new duplex. (Many of these new duplexes look like character buildings, but in fact are built slab-on-grade, i.e. without basements, and without attics, much like the cheap Vancouver Specials that preceded them). This is the first irony. The second irony is that many of the two-family zones in the City are meant to be heritage-friendly zones, which promote the preservation of character and heritage houses. Since it is largely impossible to build infill, and very costly to renovate or expand an older building, most developers will demolish the existing house, and then design the new duplex in a faux heritage style in order to get a density bonus that allows for greater floorspace. Result: character is being replaced with faux character. The final irony is that these new duplexes are then required to have a […]

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Garden apartments and letting go, then and now

In doing research for a post the other day, I stumbled upon this excerpt from a book called A History of Housing in New York City by Richard Plunz that I think has a useful lesson about development and regulation: The garden apartment would not have emerged unless it was profitable. In this aspect the garden apartment represented a major change in developers’ perceptions of profitability in relation to the issue of coverage for moderate-income housing. Prior to the 1920s, it was always assumed that of reduction of coverage [sic] would increase costs and reduce profits. The arguments for reduced coverage remained exclusively within the realm of social good, or of marketing, in the belief that apartments associated with better conditions for light and air could be expected to demand higher rents. This common wisdom changed, especially with the new accessibility to cheap outer borough land. It became apparent that reduced coverage on low-cost land might reduce costs enough to increase profits, in spite of the lower number of apartments. Thus, the financial imperative in New York City for moderate-income housing evolved from the 25-by-100 food lot mandated by the Tenement House Act of 1879 to the 100-by-100-foot lot of the Tenement House Act of 1901, to the perimeter block of the 1920s. A key these larger-scale developers was the use of a unified open space, with simplified construction detailing and reduced investment costs per room while raising rental rates. Higher tenement densities with less open space were less desirable because they required more complex and expensive spatial organization in order to provide adequate light and ventilation. The new economic formulas applied especially to housing for the arriving middle class, whose space standards were far less stringent than for tenement design. In the developing outer areas, open land and reduced values permitted reduced site coverages. The “garden apartment” is essentially […]

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