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Addressing Local Knowledge

Four years ago my wife and I decided to take our son to a special and slightly unusual restaurant to celebrate his birthday.  We were in Tokyo at the time and gave the taxi driver what we thought was the address for the restaurant – it had names and numbers on it.  Cabbies in Tokyo, and in Japan in general, are renowned for their courtesy, the cleanliness of their cabs, and their driving skill.  We were very surprised, therefore, when our driver suddenly pulled over and told us that “the restaurant is somewhere around here,” let us off, and drove away. After several minutes of search, we did manage to find the restaurant around the corner about a block or so away.  We had a great meal, but the memory of that experience has always been something of a puzzle – until now. This summer we returned to Tokyo for a family vacation, and while relaxing in our hotel room I found myself thumbing through a guide book we had brought along, Japan Made Easy, in which I found this startling statement: “Tokyo … has thousands upon thousands of streets, but fewer than one hundred of them have names.”  A quick check of Google Maps seems to confirm this assertion.   (Hat tip to Jeremy Sapienza). More than One Way to Address a Letter This raises some obvious questions, such as how one addresses a letter. The guide says: …[T]he addressing system in Japan has nothing whatsoever to do with any street the house or building might be on or near.  Addresses are based on areas rather than streets.  In metropolitan areas the “address areas” start out with the city.  Next comes the ku, or ward, then a smaller district called cho, and finally a still smaller section called banchi. This […]

Market Urbanism MUsings March 3, 2017

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 […]

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. I spent a year living in Europe–visiting Belgium, Italy, Spain and France, among other places–and found that the best places were not the big cities, but old villages, often very wealthy in times past. And it’s easy to miss what’s special about these quiet gems: the little streets and paths within them that people call home. A newly-built mall in Leuca, Italy showcases an older design sensibility   A bike tour led me to several towns in southern Italy—among them, Castro was my favorite aesthetically, with warm, immaculate streets around the center that were nonetheless devoid of many people. Castro, Italy Castro, Italy   Long before going to Europe, I had seen this meme photo:   Lo and behold, one such camera appeared right above where I parked my bike.   But overall, Bari’s old city was my favorite, with all the life coarsing through its streets. Families would open their doors and put out folding chairs in the streets. They made the streets their living room, while literally airing their dirty laundry in the rafters between buildings. Bari, Italy A quiet street in Leuven, Belgium—perhaps my favorite of all A Flemish parking lot—the Grand Beguinage, Leuven, Belgium    Reims, France In Reims, I got to tour some underground cellars that formerly stored champagne. With cool temperatures, high ceilings and lush moss lining the walls, I thought—I’d love to live here! Should people be banned from […]

Governing The Traffic Commons

As an economics professor, I often witness the surprise of my students when I explain how something as important as the market for food or clothing is self-regulating.  True, there are quality and safety regulations that attempt to control potential hazards “around the edges” of these vital markets, but by far the heavy lifting is done by competition among rival firms in the same industry.  Trying to sell tainted food or shoddy clothing in a competitive market without special privileges will either put you out of business or make you very quick on your feet. And I get great satisfaction when I see students realize that advertising, free entry, and entrepreneurship, in the context of economic freedom, are what keep goods and services safe, cheap, and of good quality.  Witness what happens when drugs and prostitution are prohibited: overly concentrated, dangerously mixed narcotics and significantly higher rates of sexually transmitted diseases, both accompanied by violence and corruption.  Here government intervention thwarts self-regulation. The Nonmarket Foundations of the Market Process In the past dozen years or so, as a result of my research interest in the economy of cities, which was sparked by my discovery of the writings of Jane Jacobs, I’ve come to appreciate more and more the nonmarket foundations of the market process.  Some of this has been reflected in previous Wabi-sabi columns that were concerned with social networks (most recently last week but also here).  Without norms that say, for example, treating strangers fairly and trading with them is good, or that lying to and stealing from strangers is bad, human well-being couldn’t have soared to the heights of the past 200 years, especially the last 60.  Now obviously none of this would have happened either without the widespread acceptance of private property, freedom of association, and the […]

Yglesias Gives Best Tweetstorm Ever

Matthew Yglesias has a group of tweets that begin with this: Someone needs to give me an Oscar one of these years so I can subject America to a tedious discussion of land use regulation. — Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) February 27, 2017 “In the movies, there is no minimum lot size or maximum lot occupancy; we fill provide as much or as little parking as we want.” — Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) February 27, 2017 “Fences is a powerful reminder that single-family zoning is not enough to make the American dream a reality.” — Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) February 27, 2017

Market Urbanism MUsings February 24, 2017

  1. This week at Market Urbanism: Four Warnings For Los Angeles On Measures S I’m not going to rehash arguments for or against the measure.  Instead, I’m going to offer several warnings based on the experience of Davis, CA, which passed its own Ballot Box Zoning Measure in 2000. World City Profiles: Ancient Rome Really Knew How To City by Matt Gangemi Now imagine a modern implementation of a Roman city. The narrow streets would be well-lit and safe, the apartments would be ranging from affordable to extravagant, the tiny shops would provide jobs to many that live above, and dense office buildings would provide jobs for many more. Well-planned parks and amenities would provide endless entertainment and chances for social interaction, while the pub on your block may connect you with your nearby neighbors. 2. Announcement Gangemi’s post above on Rome gave us an idea for what could be an ongoing and sporadic MU series—“World City Profiles”. That is, readers who live in or visit international cities could write photo blog posts about the brilliant urbanism in those places, peppering them with historical context, and commentary on how America’s design codes make such development illegal here. Given our disperse audience–and your frequent traveling–this could make for an illustrative series. PM me or Scott Beyer if you have a submission 3. Where’s Scott? Scott will spend his final weekend in the San Francisco Bay Area visiting its many notable suburbs, including Berkeley, Napa, Palo Alto and more. Then he’s heading to Portland, stop #12 on his 30-city tour. His Forbes article this week explains how Measure S Would Grip Los Angeles In A Housing Shortage The city is the nation’s homeless capital, and just passed a ballot measure that would dedicate $1.2 billion in bond revenue to fund 13,000 supportive units. But it […]

Four Warnings For Los Angeles On Measures S

The alternative title for this piece was: “Ballot Box Zoning: Where Needed Housing Goes to Die.” Next month, Los Angeles will be voting on Measure S, a proposed 2-year policy that will effectively serve as a moratorium on new construction.  That is, Measure S will require a public vote on any new development that does not fit within existing zoning.  Most of the city’s major leaders, including Mayor Eric Garcetti, have come out against the measure, and the Los Angeles Times followed suit just a few days ago. I’m not going to rehash arguments for or against the measure.  Instead, I’m going to offer several warnings based on the experience of Davis, CA, which passed its own Ballot Box Zoning Measure in 2000.   Measure J, our ballot box zoning measure, requires voter approval on any attempt to change the zoning designation of open space or agricultural land that sits on the community’s edges.  The law also explicitly names two particular parcels that must be voted on prior to approval.  So for the purposes of this piece, consider it a ballot box zoning law targeting sprawl. Warning 1: These Measures Are Hard To Roll Back Measure J passed in Davis with just 53.6% percent of the vote in a March primary when residents cast just 19,000 votes (in a city with at least 49,000 voting-age residents).  The law contained a renewal clause, and when it came up for renewal in 2010, support jumped to 76.7% percent.   This increased support may be an artifact of how the opposition attempted to stall the measure’s renewal.  Opponents of the renewal made a NIMBY argument the centerpiece of their case: they argued that slowing growth at the edge of town meant more infill pressure in the city’s core, threatening the character of neighborhoods.  As I’ll discuss in a […]

World City Profiles: Ancient Rome Really Knew How To City

I’ve been enjoying the series Meet the Romans, and episode 2 really revealed what I love about many ancient Roman cities.  I’ve been to quite a few, though often without knowing beforehand that they were ancient Roman cities.  These include cities like Dubrovnik, Split, La Spezia, Florence, Istanbul, Budapest, and yes, Rome.  The attributes I’ve come to love include: 1. very narrow streets, often not accommodating cars 2. countless 4- to 6-story buildings with a variety of units, from cheap tiny units to large family units with courtyards 3. built into the 1st floor of these buildings are tiny shops – everything from restaurants to banks to bakeries 4. in ancient Rome most housing units weren’t used for much more than sleeping – living was done in the city. You often didn’t have a kitchen, laundry facilities, or even a bathroom. The host Mary Beard tells about the horrors of these things (barely enough room to lie down, the danger of dark small alleys), but I think in a modern world they’d be wonderful (ok, keep private bathrooms). Walk to your job, spend time in a vast variety of restaurants or pubs, experience the feeling of a busy narrow street, chat with neighbors at a public park, and take your kids to relax and play at the public bath or let them play in a public square while you grab a cappuccino. This is heaven to me. The only reason most modern cities aren’t like this is because we force them not to be. We require minimum space for all housing types, design our streets for cars instead of people, limit the height of buildings in most places, and separate our retail from our living zones. The effect is to push the less-rich outward, separate us from other people, and […]

Market Urbanism MUsings February 10, 2017

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 […]

My New Book On Market Urbanism

I am happy to announce that my new book “Government Intervention and Suburban Sprawl: The Case for Market Urbanism” is now available at Amazon.  There is a “look inside the book” feature at the book’s Amazon webpage for those who would like to know more. I would like to thank not just the readers of this blog who commented on drafts, but also on those of you who helped me refine my thinking by commenting on blog posts.

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