I regularly listen to Russel Robert's EconTalk podcasts. This week's podcast with Michael Munger from Duke University is particularly interesting, and possibly my favorite, along with the Milton Friedman interview. Photo by Flikr user Silvia Sugasti Professor Munger had just returned from … [Read more...]
Hyde Park Chicago Before Zoning
photo by flickr user mandus I recently came across a great blog, Hyde Park Urbanist, which focuses on urbanism in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. Hyde Park is located along Lake Michigan on the South Side and is the home of The University of Chicago as well as Frank LLoyd Wright's famous … [Read more...]
How to Obscure Reality to Make Planners Seem Important
Regular reader, Bill forwarded this article from the New York Daily News calling it an "outstanding collection of anti-density and anti-market propaganda presented (as always) as objective journalism." The article is riddled with misconceptions (aka Urbanism Legends) about zoning and development … [Read more...]
Journalists and Cities
Here's a link to an interesting article by Scott Page at Planetizen called A Journalistic View of Cities Scott discusses how mainstream journalists are poorly equipped to write appropriately on urban issues aside from than architecture. I was reading the New York Times Magazine special … [Read more...]
Socialist Cities
So, you think the planners in your area are taking something a little too far? Be glad you aren't in Venezuela... I wish I could link to the article by Michael Mehaffy in The Urban Land Institute's May edition of Urban Land titled "Venezuela's New Socialist Cities", but ULI doesn't provide the … [Read more...]
Government Planning Day
The Antiplanner discusses how well-intentioned agencies become wasteful government-planning bureaucracies. The mal-investment in our socialist highway system and the resulting congestion, pollution, disrepair, and sprawl come to mind. Using smart growth, modern day planners are trying to correct … [Read more...]
NY Times: West Side Redevelopment Plans in Disarray
All these different players trying to "plan" economic growth could end up smothering it. Instead of letting the developer take the risk, politicians want to play hero. NY Times: West Side Redevelopment Plans in Disarray Curbed: West Side Doom & Gloom: Moynihan the Key for Megaprojects … [Read more...]
Sowell: Green “Disparate Impact”
NIMBYism and exclusionary zoning has helped "preserve the character" of desirable urban areas by driving out the economically unfortunate. Green Disparate Impact … [Read more...]