Check out Alain Bertaud's Master Class lecture at CEPT University in Ahmedabad, India. You can also see the talk I gave the same day: Pro: When you speak to architects as a practitioner, they call it a "master class", which is very flattering. Cons: Don't try to follow Alain Bertaud. … [Read more...]
ReasonTV on SF’s YIMBY Movement
Last week, Reason.tv (the multimedia outlet of Reason Magazine) published a video about San Francisco's YIMBY movement. The video describes the decades of underdevelopment in San Francisco as the result of community activism intended to limit the supply of new construction. As a result, San … [Read more...]
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. … [Read more...]
In Defense Of Land Reclamation: It Ain’t All Palm Islands!
Earlier today Urban Photo Blog tweeted earlier today a link to an article about Hong Kong’s latest land reclamation project, with an obviously sarcastic “because it worked so well in Dubai!” tacked on at the end. Not to pick on Urban Photo Blog – actually, his Twitter account is … [Read more...]
Why the FRA is Bad for America, in 10 Seconds
A lot of words have been written about how horribly FRA safety regulations cripple US main line passenger railway budgets (and you should read them!), but it’s also important to remember that even as a safety regulator, the FRA fails. You have to see it to believe it: ... … [Read more...]
Some Inspiration from Guatemala
Turn the lights down, and the volume up. It's time for some Market Urbanist media, courtesy of some future urbanist leaders who's ideas may one day liberate our cities from yesterday's unenlightened technocrats. Architecture students at Universidad Francisco Marroquin in Guatemala participated … [Read more...]
Video: Sandy Ikeda on The Unintended Consequences of “Smart Growth”
I came across this video interview of economist Sandy Ikeda by the Mackinac Center. Sandy currently blogs at thinkmarkets and has contributed guest posts to Market Urbanism. I thought Sandy did a great job discussing many of the topics we cover in this site. Sandy is particularly insightful when … [Read more...]
Urban[ism] Legend: Traffic Planning
Mathieu Helie at Emergent Urbanism posted a link to a interesting game created at the University of Minnesota. Mathieu explains it better than I can: The game begins in the Stalinian Central Bureau of Traffic Control, where a wrinkly old man pulls you out of your job at the mail room to come … [Read more...]