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.

new report on SROs

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Once upon a time, New York City's poor single people were usually not homeless because they lived in little apartments with shared bathrooms and kitchens.  These units are called "single room occupancy" (SRO) units in plannerese. (When I was young, people used less flattering terms such as … [Read more...]

Density Is How the Working Poor Outbid the Rich for Urban Land

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The great failing of modern land-use regulation is the failure to allow densities to naturally change over time. Let me explain. Imagine you are trying to sell a property you own in a desirable inner suburban neighborhood in your town. The lot is 4,000 square feet and hosts an old 4,000 … [Read more...]

Zoning Laws, the Housing Market and the Ripple Effect

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Henry Hazlitt has called economics a science of recognizing secondary consequences. What he and others who have taken the time to study the working of free markets have perceived is that there is a natural orderliness in uncoerced dealings between men which tends to maximize the well-being of each … [Read more...]

Does Density Raise Housing Prices?

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My last post, on urban geographic constraints and housing prices, led to an interesting discussion thread.  The most common counter argument was that because dense cities are usually more expensive, density must cause high cost.  But if this was true, cities would become cheaper as they became less … [Read more...]

Exempting Suburbia: How suburban sprawl gets special treatment in our tax code

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This is the third post in a series about government policies that encouraged suburban growth in the US. You can find the first part here and the second one here. Suburban sprawl gets preferential tax treatment in the US. As a result, it is cheaper to spend a dollar on housing than on … [Read more...]

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