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Category Culture & Books

Joel Kotkin’s New Book Lays Out His Sprawling Vision For America

Also read my other post about Kotkin’s book:  NIMBYism as an Argument Against Urbanism Traditionally, defenders of suburban sprawl have been skittish about proclaiming that government should promote sprawl and halt infill development.  Instead, they have taken a libertarian tack, arguing that government should allow any kind of development while asserting that a level playing field would favor automobile-dependent suburbia. But in his new book The Human City, Joel Kotkin, who, among many other titles, is the executive director of a pro-sprawl organization called the Center for Opportunity Urbanism, appears to take a different view.  Like more libertarian defenders of the status quo, he generally opposes attempts to limit new suburban development.  But he also writes that both city residents and suburbanites aggressively resist “densification”- that is, when nearby landowners want to build new housing or offices.  For example, he writes that Los Angeles neighborhood activists “have rallied against attempts to build denser buildings, which generate more congestion and erode both the area’s livability and its distinct urban identity.”  Similarly, he writes that some New Yorkers opposed “Mayor Bloomberg’s attempts to further densify already congested Midtown.”  But Kotkin never suggests that turning a cornfield into a subdivision creates congestion, or that doing so would erode an area’s “distinct rural identity.” He also doesn’t seem to think that new housing belongs in existing suburbs: in describing zoning that prohibits such housing, he writes that “suburbs generally can be expected to, for the most part, resist high degrees of densification”, including “attempts by planners to impose strict regulations on construction and impose higher densities”.  This language implies (erroneously) that “densification” is something imposed by a distant government, rather than by landowners who want to build places for people to live. So if I interpret his book correctly, it seems that there is nothing libertarian […]

The Bottom-Up Urbanism Of Patrik Schumacher

  [editor’s note: This article was originally posted at Medium.com, and republished with permission of the author, Zachary Caceres. Below are links to some of the Free Market Urbanism writings and speaking of Patrik Schumacher, Partner at Zaha Hadid Architects. Schumacher’s writing is often too dense for me to parse, but Caceres does a great job of breaking it down.] Free Market Urbanism – Urbanism Beyond Planning I Am Trying to Imagine a Radical Free Market Urbanism Illinois Institute of Technology Lecture On “Free Market Urban Order” The Bottom-Up Urbanism of Patrik Schumacher What is the “Radical Free Market Urbanism” of Patrik Schumacher? Here’s his deal as I understand it, gleaned from reading Schumacher’s nearly impenetrable essays. Schumacher believes that architecture and urban design is at a crossroads. The styles that animated the mid-20th century are dead, because they depended too much on central planning (the sort of zoning and design that Jane Jacobs hated). Modernism is dead and was the last truly coherent architectural design philosophy or style. But postmodernism isn’t really anything. He calls it the ‘garbage spill’ approach to urban design—where anything goes in such a way that you get an incoherent sprawling mess. Many modern American cities are like a Frankenstein of awful central planning and unstructured garbage spill. So he proposes Parametric Design, a new—and to Schumacher—coherent 21st century design style. Parametricism is a conscious adaptation of insights from complex systems theory to design. Fundamentally, parametric design is like a fusion of agent-based modeling with complex computation enabled by computers. These models are about tying elements together rather than imposing a vision from above. With so many linked dependent variables, the design takes on qualitatively different forms as you manipulate the independent variables. It’s like ‘emergence’ in biological systems. Parametric design makes plans easily editable and manipulable even after construction […]

Taylor Swift Spurns Country Music’s Longtime Attitude Towards Cities

If you listen to a lot of bluegrass and country, you’d think cities were the worst thing that ever happened to humanity. J.D. Crowe and the New South ask why they ever left their plow behind to look for a job in the town: Hank Williams, Jr. thinks that you’ll only get mugged if you go downtown.  If you keep watching, you find that this is exactly what happened to the narrator’s friend! Dave Grisman didn’t get mugged, but still found himself impoverished: Taylor Swift, on the other hand, can portray a positive side of cities: cosmopolitan places to escape bad relationships, meet new people with different life experiences, and grow your dreams. In White Horse, she reminds herself that small towns are difficult places for dreams to come true: In Fifteen, she describes a process where girls growing up in small towns can be encouraged not to dream big dreams (although she has moved on to bigger, better things, as she reminds herself): In Mean, she holds out the hope for city living as a way of escaping abusive relationships holding her back: When she finally reaches the big city (New York), she is overwhelmed with the possibilities. People come from all over the world, feel free to explore their sexual identities, remake themselves, and try to achieve their dreams: Real-life Taylor Swift is a fantastic example of somebody who achieved her dreams by moving to a specialized city, Nashville. The Music City has grown and evolved as a cultural and economic engine in country music that allows young people like herself to meet like-minded, skilled people to collaborate with. Good for Taylor Swift for recognizing that the same process means cities can allow for personal growth in other dimensions, by exposing people to others from all over the world and all walks of life.   [Originally published on […]

Glamour in streetscapes

A while ago I attended an Urban Land Institute event on development trends in Fairfax’s Mosaic District. A presenter from the retail developer EDENS described their strategy of adding “sidewalk jewelry,” a design technique used to entice shoppers to travel down sidewalks between stores. Having never heard the term before, it nonetheless stuck with me as I thought about retail developments that manage to create relatively lively pedestrian environments from the top down. At Mosaic District, this street jewelry takes the form of signage designed to engage pedestrians, fountains, and planters: It’s certainly more aesthetically pleasing and engaging to pedestrians than the average strip center. While the typical strip mall has a parking lot for a set back, Mosaic District has a parking garage that allows the rest of the center to be more pedestrian-scaled. With the “sidewalk jewelry” framework in mind, it’s easy to see that many retail developers have embraced this trend toward focusing on the pedestrian experience once shoppers have left their cars at the center’s periphery. While Easton Town Center in Columbus has many of the same stores as any major mall, it’s outdoor shopping environment is distinctly different, attempting to emulate the “town center” in its name: For shoppers who value retail ambience, these “lifestyle center” sidewalks provide a much nicer atmosphere relative to more dated strip center or shopping mall designs, but they can’t compare to environments where storefront decorations developed more organically. A recent trip to Quebec City reminded me of the sidewalk jewelry term, but there the visual treats that lure pedestrians down the sidewalk have much more texture than the shopping centers’ above because they are the result of an emergent order among the street’s businesses and residents rather than one developer’s vision: This type of street meets social critic Virginia Postrel’s framework of glamour. In […]

Thoughts on The Power Broker and Government Roads

I recently finished The Power Broker by Robert Caro after many months of Metro reading. I loved the book, and can’t recommend it enough. Caro provides an overview of Robert Moses’ policies here. If you don’t want to invest in reading the full 1162 pages, I would particularly recommend the chapters that explain the impacts of Robert Moses’ policies on what were cohesive neighborhoods: “Changing,” “One Mile,” and “Rumors and the Report of Rumors.” While reading The Power Broker, I was repeatedly reminded of the massive coercion involved in road building despite the commonly held belief among many advocates of limited government that road provision is one of the least offensive government practices. Oftentimes the small government tolerance of road building seems to stem from the relatively small subsidies that roads require. Randal O’Toole has often demonstrated that automobile travel is cheaper per passenger mile than mass transit and that the bulk of these costs are born by drivers. While he advocates moving to a vehicle mile tax that would more closely tie road costs to their users and allow for the devolution of transit funding, he does not challenge that road building is a legitimate state and local government function. However, as Stephen, Adam and others have previously pointed out, these accounting costs of road building don’t take into consideration the opportunity cost of the land dedicated to roads, which in areas with high real estate prices is considerable. Moses notoriously bulldozed valuable developments for highways and while he made operating profits on tolls, he put land to lower value use in the process. For example, Moses used eminent domain and government funds to transform what was once a privately operated elevated rail system into an elevated highway on Brooklyn’s Third Avenue, destroying property values and a neighborhood in the process. We have no way of […]

A Conversation about the Commonwealth of Belle Isle

Yesterday I learned about a proposed free city in the United States through Arnold Kling. The project, called the Commonwealth of Belle Isle would be located on an island on the Detroit River that is currently a city park. The proposal comes from Detroit real estate developer Rod Lockwood who recently wrote a novel that takes place 29 years in the future when the city-state is developed and prosperous. When Rod wrote the book, he wasn’t aware of the support for international charter cities from economists like Paul Romer and investors like Michael Strong. He said that he got the idea for the city when he was running a marathon that crossed into Belle Isle. “Necessity is the mother of invention. The current state of Detroit led me to think about possible solutions, and I realized that Belle Isle could be the next Singapore or Hong Kong.” As Arnold Kling points out, Rod’s background in real estate development gives him advantages over some other charter city boosters without this background. “I do understand the costs involved in greenfield development such as utilities and I have site planning experience,” Rod said. To move to the city, residents would have to pay $300,000 under the proposal to cover initial infrastructure costs. Rod sees the 982-acre island as home to 35,000 people. The city would be a walking city, with cars stored off of the island, and the initial infrastructure would include a monorail system. Rod said that being a car-free city outside of emergency vehicles and service vehicles is an important quality of life issue. “When I started researching city-states, I looked into Monaco, which does have cars and roads,” he explained. “It would be nice to have more green space than Monaco, and being a walking city will allow for that.” Rod identifies […]

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Centrally Planned City

On my last post about Ayn Rand’s views on cities, I received feedback in the comments that obviously she loved cities and on Twitter that obviously she did not. I think I come down on the side that she likely saw cities, and particularly skyscrapers, as embodiment of human achievement. However Frank Lloyd Wright — the likely inspiration for her character Howard Roark in The Fountainhead — strongly opposed population density both for his architectural preference and from a public policy angle. Wright called his urban development vision Broadacres because he thought that population density should be less than one person per acre. In part this may have stemmed from Wright’s practice of organic architecture. Many of the tenets of organic architecture, such as designing buildings with their users’ needs as the foremost priority, can be practiced as well in dense development as in houses like his most famous Fallingwater. However, Wright seemed to draw particular inspiration from designing buildings in greenfield locations, inspired by the natural landscape. This is all well and good for those who want to live far from cities. However, Wright went on to argue that density of people and buildings is not merely an issue of preference, but one of democracy. He argued that city life restricted individuals’ freedom of movement, and that skyscrapers limited individualism by increasing congestion and “keeping concentration where it is,” as if working or living in a skyscraper was like being in prison rather than a voluntary activity. Like many who have argued against building density because it increases congestion, Wright downplayed the necessary traffic congestion that occurs when land use restrictions require people to live far from their workplaces. Wright saw Broadacres as the anthithesis of Corbusian design, but both share a focus on green space and both would rely on heavy-handed planning, making them unlikely to […]

Ayn Rand on Urbanism

Ayn Rand’s recent appearances in the news made me think about her position on urban issues. Some of her novels suggest that she is anti-city, believing that individualism can only be achieved by living in remote areas. In Anthem, for example, her protagonist lives in a type of dorm where people are never allowed to be alone. He achieves the freedom that he couldn’t realize in this totalitarian society by escaping to an isolated home in the woods. Likewise, her description of Galt’s Gulch, the mountain utopia in Atlas Shrugged for productive capitalists, is based on Ouray, Colorado. Ouray is a beautiful town in a beautiful part of the country, but its built landscape notably shares little in common with the urban areas where her villains live. While her Galt’s Gulch description is clearly fanciful, I think it is important to note that the characters would not have been able to support themselves in a small market with the specialties they chose before dropping out of society. Galt himself is an electrical engineer, and other residents of the Gulch include a railroad manager, a metallurgist, and a famous actress. Since the Gulch does not engage in trade with the outside world, those living in the Gulch would not be trading in a market nearly large enough to be specializing in their chosen professions. In The Gated City, Ryan Avent provides an excellent description of the specialization that is only possible within large cities. Going  back to the Ouray example, this small mountain town provides opportunities for a certain type of specialization, such as spa manager or ice climbing guide, but this is only because tourists visiting the area have the requisite standard of living to visit resort towns. Since the division of labor is limited by the size of the market, the division of labor within Galt’s […]

The High Cost of Free Parking Preface and Afterword

This is the last post in the series on Donald Shoup’s The High Cost of Free Parking. Previous can be found here: Chapters 1 – 4 Chapters 5 – 9 Chapters 10 – 14 Chapters 16 – 18 Chapters 19 – 22 Preface In these two chapters, which Donald Shoup added for the paperback edition of the book, he discusses some of the changes in parking policy since the original edition in 2004. He also reiterates his three prescriptions for saner parking policy: 1) Set the right price for curb parking; 2) Return parking revenue to pay for local public services; 3) Remove parking minimum requirements. He points out that cities that have tried “performance parking” have had successful results. San Francisco’s SFpark is perhaps the country’s most advanced system for performance parking. Curb spaces include sensors that can tell whether or not the space is occupied. Then parking managers can adjust prices remotely to approach the 85% occupancy goal as closely as possible. Shoup argues that performance parking should not be a politicized change. Setting an 85% occupancy target is not designed to raise revenue or to benefit any group at the expense of another. Rather, prices can eliminate parking shortages, so that people pay for parking with money rather than with time spent cruising. These prices also incentivise greater turnover. Nonetheless, he points out that performance parking has opponents: Thinking about parking seems to take place in the reptilian cortex, the most primitive part of the brain responsible for making snap decisions about urgent fight-or-flight choices such as how to avoid being eaten. The same could be said about many land use decisions which do not seem to be made on the basis of rationality. He points out that performance pricing is very unlikely to reduce customers in […]

The High Cost of Free Parking Chapters 19-22

This post from the series on Donald Shoup‘s The High Cost of Free Parking is reposted from last week because the site’s database caused recent posts to be deleted. Chapter 19: The Ideal Source of Local Public Revenue In this chapter, Donald Shoup makes the case that passing up the potential revenue source of curb parking doesn’t make fiscal sense for cities. He bases his case heavily on Henry George’s theory of land taxation. George argued that land is the fairest and least distortive good to tax because its value comes not from individuals, but from the community. Milton Friedman agreed saying, “the least bad tax is the property tax on the unimproved value of land.” One obstacle to relying on a land tax as a sole revenue is that accurately appraising unimproved land is difficult. But Shoup points out that charging for parking avoids this problem because cities can use prices as demand management. Shoup further explains the political potential for parking benefit districts and includes a section discussing the potential to create similar benefit districts for freeway tolls. He points out that dedicating toll revenues to the neighborhoods that they pass through would create an interest group for congestion pricing and that this would benefit the often low-income neighborhoods where freeways are located. I think a key part of this chapter is that Shoup explains how charging for parking to prevent shortages illuminates the opportunity cost of dedicating land to curb parking. As this price becomes visible, it may open up opportunities to lease current parking spaces for other uses, such as outdoor dining or outdoor retail. While he is optimistic about the potential for parking reform, he includes this great line: “Staunch conservatives often become ardent communists when it comes to parking, and rational people quickly turn emotional.” […]

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