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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.

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The Urban Planning of the North Pole

December 25, 2020 By Nolan Gray Leave a Comment

You might think the North Pole is the most magical place on earth. But behind the magic, our deep dive into the history of Christmas movies reveals that there's more to it than that. In our firstPop Culture Urbanism holiday special, I explore the urban planning behind the North Pole. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Culture, Pop Culture Urbanism Tagged With: christmas, city planning, design regulations, growth machine, north pole, pop culture urbanism\

How Developers Became Hollywood’s Favorite Villain

August 21, 2020 By Nolan Gray

If there's one thing that unites TV and film since the fifties, it's the archetype of the dastardly developer - forever destroying homes and hiking rents. But it wasn't always this way. Where did this trope come from, and is it true? This week on Pop Culture Urbanism, I dig into the cronyism and red … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Culture, Pop Culture Urbanism Tagged With: cronyism, developers, disney, gentefied, gentrification, hey arnold, hollywood, it's a wonderful life

The City Planning Behind Avatar: The Last Airbender

August 14, 2020 By Nolan Gray

Appa flying over Republic City

Has the Water Tribe gone full NIMBY? Can Avatar Aang overcome his angry impulse to preserve? Why is Ba Sing Se so segregated? And what can we learn from the success of Republic City? In this week's episode of Pop Culture Urbanism, we explore the trade-offs and complications that every growing city … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Culture, Pop Culture Urbanism Tagged With: avatar, ba sing sae, city planning, legend of korra, republic city, the last airbender, urban design, water tribe

The Amazing Housing Politics of Spider-Man

August 7, 2020 By Nolan Gray

How can Spider-Man possibly afford to live in New York? And how can we make the city more affordable for dear Aunt May? In the first episode of my brand new YouTube series on pop-culture urbanism, we dig into the Sam Raimi "Spider-Man" trilogy to uncover the housing problems (and solutions) of … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Culture, housing, zoning Tagged With: housing, housing affordability, New York City, nyc, spider-man, spiderman, yimby

The Low-Key Housing Politics of Spider-Man

July 17, 2019 By Nolan Gray

With Spider-Man: Far From Home hitting theaters earlier this month, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has taken one of the series’ biggest risks yet: pulling Spider-Man out of New York City. The gravity of this decision is baked into the film’s title — with good reason. More than any other Marvel … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Culture, housing Tagged With: affordability, housing, marvel, New York City, queens, spider-man, Urban Planning

An interesting complementarity in a city: rich & poor

July 31, 2018 By Sandy Ikeda

Here's something I hadn't thought of in quite this way (but many others probably have): In a living city, space is cheap enough so that people with wacky (often "terrible") new ideas can test them out, while wealthier people in that city search for wacky new things to try out (because they've … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Author: Sandy Ikeda, Culture, Culture of Congestion Tagged With: complementarity, living city, poor, rich, wacky

Why another book about cities?

April 6, 2018 By Sandy Ikeda

city books

The starting point for Jacobs’s analysis and the focus of much of her thought is the city, its nature and significance. There are plenty of books out there that in some way celebrate cities.  Many describe cities as engines of economic development, wellsprings of art and culture, and incubators of … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Author: Sandy Ikeda, Culture, Culture of Congestion, Economics, Jane Jacobs Tagged With: cities, emergence, Jane Jacobs, market process, spontaneous order

The Disillusionment of the American Planner, or How We Became Mark Brendanawicz

February 12, 2018 By Nolan Gray

Mark Brendanawicz of NBC's Parks and Recreation

Spoiler Warning: This post contains minor spoilers about Season Two of Parks and Recreation, which aired nearly 10 years ago. Why have you still not watched it?Lately I have been rewatching Parks and Recreation, motivated in part by the shocking discovery that my girlfriend never made it past … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Culture, history, Jane Jacobs, planning Tagged With: city planning, high modernism, Jane Jacobs, leslie knope, liberal planning, Mark Brendanawicz, parks and rec, parks and recreation, peter hall, planning, ron swanson

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