Over the last decade, Austin has exploded with a food truck revolution. They are so popular that temporary food truck installations on empty lots are mourned when the lot becomes ready for development and the trucks move on. But, taste aside, why do they do so well? What can we learn from them? 1 … [Read more...]
Rent Control Is Bad For Both Landlords And Tenants
When laypeople hear the phrase “rent control”, they typically conjure up one of a few images. Tenants imagine easy street, a world where housing is ridiculously low cost. Maybe they think of rent control in NYC, where they saw the characters from Friends live in large apartments for far below market … [Read more...]
Part II: The need for low-quality housing
Last week I wrote a post highlighting how important it is for major cities to have places for low-income people to live. Without the opportunity to live in vibrant, growing cities, our nation's poor can't take advantage of the employment and educational opportunities cities offer. My post … [Read more...]
Rothbard The Urbanist Part 7: Pricing Highways
Surprise!! I've had the intent to wrap-up the Rothbard The Urbanist series for a long time, and it's been sitting on my todo list for over 6 years.I want to thank Jeffrey Tucker, then at mises.org, and now at FEE.org and liberty.me for enthusiastically granting permission to reprint excerpts … [Read more...]
The need for low-quality housing
The market urbanism axiom -- permitting housing supply to increase is key to achieving affordable housing -- has been made recently by Rick Jacobus at Shelterforce and Daniel Hertz at City Observatory. However both argue that even with an increasing supply, low-income people will need aid in order … [Read more...]
Rent Control: A No-Win
In an otherwise excellent article on NIMBYism and luxury housing, affordable housing consultant Rick Jacobus writes: “economist Anthony Downs reviewed the published studies and found that while 'stringent' rent control imposed over a very long time had reduced private apartment construction in the … [Read more...]
Liberate the Garage!: Autonomous Cars and the American Dream
When it comes to the impact autonomous cars will have on cities, there’s plenty of room for disagreement. Will they increase or decrease urban densities? Will they help with congestion or make it worse? At the same time, there seems to be widespread agreement on at least two things: First, far fewer … [Read more...]
Who Plans?: Jane Jacobs’ Hayekian critique of urban planning
Cities are fantastically dynamic places, and this is strikingly true of their successful parts, which offer a fertile ground for the plans of thousands of people.- Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities For most of the field’s history, prominent urban planning theorists have … [Read more...]