Category MUsings

1. Announcements: Get ready for Market Urbanism at #FEEcon June 15-17 in Atlanta.   Market Urbanists can use the code MU40OFF to get 40% off.  We’ll have several other exciting announcements over the next few days.  We can’t wait to see you there! If you are in New York, Market Urbanism is pleased to be a partner of Smart Cities NYC ’17: Powered by People, May 3-6. (smartcitiesnyc.com).  The offer code SCNYC100 gets market urbanists a $100 ticket discounted down from the $1,200 standard price. Sandy Ikeda has a short clip in the film Citizen Jane: Battle for the City.  Go see it!! Sandy Ikeda‘s Annual Jane’s Walk in Brooklyn Heights is this Sunday at 12:15. Vince Graham, former Chairman of the South Carolina Transportation Infrastructure Bank and friend of Market Urbanism published an op-ed in the Charleston Post and Courier: Unhealthy S.C. appetite for roads demands a diet 2. Recently at Market Urbanism: Market Urbanist Book Review: Cities and The Wealth of Nations by Jane Jacobs by Matthew Robare It seems like just about everyone who has ever set foot in a major city has read The Death and Life of Great American Cities and most professional urban planners have embraced at least part of her ideas. But that was not the only book she wrote and the others deserve attention from urbanists. Government-Created Parking Externalities by Emily Hamilton Developers are not responsible for creating a traffic congestion externality. Rather, city policymakers create this externality when they provide free or underpriced street parking. They cause drivers to waste time and gas sitting in traffic. Parking is not a public good that needs to be publicly-provided; it’s both rivalrous and excludable. Richard Florida and Market Urbanism by Michael Lewyn Florida writes that part of this “crisis” is the exploding cost of housing in some […]

  1. Announcements John Morris has started an alternative Facebook group called Flyover Urbanism: A Market Urbanist Group for Flyover Country 2. This Week at Market Urbanism Emily Hamilton Market Urbanism is Still underrated New data keeps coming in that shows that increases in housing supply tend to be followed by declining rental rates, even in the cities facing the highest demand. Nolan Gray Towards A Liberal Approach To Urban Form A liberal approach to urban form accepts that reasonable people can disagree over the ideal urban arrangement. Wrapped into every grand vision and design regulation are particular normative preferences that many may not share. Should retail and residential be separate? Should every apartment receive at least one hour of direct sunlight? Should everyone live on a one acre lot? Jeff Fong Building A Better BART BART owns acres of surface parking spread out across the system. If it were to redevelop these parking lots into high density, mixed use developments, it could copy the MTRC model and create a high yield stream of revenue. Sandy Ikeda The Other Broken Window Whether you quickly mend a broken window, bend over to pick up a piece of trash, or intervene when someone disturbs the peace depends in part on your personal ethics, of course. But it also depends very much on whether your neighbors will applaud or laugh at you for doing it. 3. Where’s Scott? Scott Beyer remains in Portland, and this weekend will visit Eugene and Corvallis. His Forbes article this week was Portland’s Urban Growth Boundary: A Driver of Suburban Sprawl If bustling cities prevent what can be vaguely defined as “sprawl” on their nearest virgin land, it’s not like the people will go away and the sprawl will stop. It may resurface in even more remote places. This is counterproductive both for [density] advocates, and […]

1. Announcements I’ve posted a link on the homepage giving more info on the Market Urbanism programming at the upcoming FEE Conference, which is in Atlanta, June 15-17… The YIMBY party announced it will hold its 2nd annual conference, occurring this year in Oakland, July 13-16… And recently another YIMBY group popped up: YIMBY Denver! 2. This Week at Market Urbanism Michael Lewyn wrote Where the permits are & The “Foreign Buyers” Argument A common argument against new housing supply is that in high-cost cities such as New York, demand from foreign buyers is so overwhelming as to make new supply irrelevant. A recent study (available here) by two business school professors suggests otherwise. Emily Hamilton Conflicting Affordable Housing Policies Recently I presented on a panel at Chapman University on the future of housing in Orange County. Our panel highlighted the tensions between housing programs designed to help low-income and homeless households and those designed to help middle-income households. Sandy Ikeda wrote Addressing Local Knowledge & a book review on The Future Once Happened Here & Of Maps and Modernism In a sense, it may seem silly to criticize a map for being abstract, since, well, that’s what maps are supposed to do or else they would be useless.  But there is such a thing as being too abstract.  Maps should not abstract from what is essential to its purpose, which is to facilitate travel. 3. MU Elsewhere Emily‘s speech at Chapman University can be found at the 19:30 mark of this link Nolan Gray’s piece last year on Houston’s partial embrace of Market Urbanism was republished on FEE.org. He also published a to-do list for HUD secretary Ben Carson at Forbes. Carson could direct HUD officials to craft and disseminate model zoning reform legislation to the states. As urban history geeks may know, conventional “Euclidian” zoning […]

1. Announcement Another reminder, if you’re a Los Angeles resident, to vote “no” on Measure S on Tuesday, March 7th. More info on the anti-housing initiative can be found here. 2. This Week at Market Urbanism Yglesias Gives Best Tweetstorm Ever by Michael Lewyn Governing The Traffic Commons by Sandy Ikeda I recently showed my students a short video about a radical way of addressing problems of traffic congestion: accidents, pollution, and time wasted on the road…It’s quite simple: Remove traffic lights, cautions, and marked pedestrian crossings. Asher Meyers provides the latest in World City Profiles: European Villages Are Showcases Of Old Urbanism There is always the lurking suspicion that great urbanism is a museum piece, something we cannot recreate. We have to console ourselves with guarding what’s left. Even then, some feel it unfit for ‘modern life,’ that humans cannot live as their recent ancestors had. Urbanists tend to celebrate cities and spaces of great renown, which makes remaking our own little corner of the world seem futile. 3. Where’s Scott? Scott Beyer has left San Francisco and is moving this weekend towards Portland, with in-between stops in Redding, Medford, Eugene and more. His 3 articles this week included one for Governing Magazine on the Yimby Movement, and two for Forbes  United States Has 5 Of World’s 10 Most Congested Cities and How Far Can Miami’s Beach Development Spread? But the real story is what’s happening north of Miami Beach. Aside from a few areas dedicated to state parkland, there is now essentially a contiguous urban shoreline extending from the southern tip of Miami Beach up to Fort Lauderdale…And an awful lot of this area is becoming vertical. 4. At the Market Urbanism Facebook Group John Morris wants to start a Pittsburgh Yimby group Isabella Chu wants to know the connection between urban density and improved health outcomes Hussain Akbari wants […]

1. Announcement Michael Lewyn, a UPenn legal scholar and MU contributor, just wrote a book about our concept:  “Government Intervention and Suburban Sprawl: The Case for Market Urbanism.” More info at Amazon. 2. This week at Market Urbanism: Only In California: Twisting an Anti-Exclusionary Law To Rationalize Exclusion by California Palms Exclusionary zoning is the use of zoning to price people out of a community. The classic example is minimum lot sizes or minimum unit sizes: cities only zone parcels big enough to ensure low-income families cannot afford the housing. 3. Where’s Scott? Scott Beyer completed another week in the San Francisco Bay Area, and this weekend will take a detour to Sacramento and other parts of California’s agricultural central area. 4. At the Market Urbanism Facebook Group Borna Khoshand is “curious to hear your thoughts on the “mansionization” of city neighborhoods.” (citing Chicago‘s Lincoln Park) Christopher Ard asks,”So, what are your real thoughts on Market Urbanism in a place like New Orleans where historic preservation is a large part of our economy?” Adam Millsap wrote: Economic policies and institutions matter John Morris discusses Japan‘s housing prices Jeff Andrade-Fong has news from the Bay Area Front: “TL;DR: We routed a bunch of NIMBYs at PlannComm. A major project moved closer to full approval. And we should remember that good things can happen if we work for them.” John Morris posits a general question/theory, “my guess is that given the dramatic increase in living space per person, many neighborhoods have to increase building heights, just to sustain current density levels.” via Krishan Madan, ‘Meandering, navel gazing piece that boils down to “I don’t understand filtering”‘: How to Be a Housing Ally (Or, Why I’m Not a YIMBY) via Matt Robare: When Do Renters Behave Like Homeowners? High Rent, Price Anxiety, and NIMBYism via Jaap Weel: Housing […]

1. This week at Market Urbanism: Are “Charter Cities” a Solution? by Sandy Ikeda What makes a charter city attractive is the prospect of rapidly instituting rules consistent with economic development in an area that might otherwise take decades to do so, offering almost overnight the chance of a better life for the citizens of an impoverished country for whom long-distance immigration is too costly. While I find myself largely sympathetic to the concept, two things bother me about it. 2. Where’s Scott? Scott Beyer is spending the holidays in his hometown of Charlottesville, VA, and will fly back Monday to Los Angeles. His Forbes article this week was titled Yimby Nation: The Rise of America’s Pro-Housing Political Coalition The grassroots activist side sits more on the West Coast, germinating among a colorful hodgepodge of non-profits, informal civic groups, beer hall meetups, blogging and social media platforms, and firebrand individuals, from beachtown gadflies to downtown flâneurs. 3. At the Market Urbanism Facebook Group: Nga Pham is “being accused of trying to build a ‘mini-hotel that will be ‘airbnb’ or causing a lot of noise and parking problems. or letting people live in the closets. If anyone wants to help with actively voicing Yimby sentiments and is from Berkeley pm me.” Malia Kristina asks for “Recommendations for articles on the future governance challenges of megacities?” Robert Stark interviews Charles Marohn from Strong Towns Roger Valdez wrote: What is to be Done?: Taking on 2017 and Beyond via David N. Welton, “Interesting and specific example of the market being at odds with “urbanism””: Homebuilders say ‘no’ to Redmond code changes via Anthony Ling: Urban myth busting: New rental housing and median-income households via Elizabeth Lasky: Should there be carbon penalties for ‘no growth’ communities? via Krishan Madan: ‘Morally criminal’ efforts by Pioneer Square developer thwarted [Seattle] via Jon […]