No doubt, mass production of the automobile is one of the greatest innovations of all times. It has allowed for increased mobility of goods and people, which has greatly improved productivity and leisure. But, is subsidizing mobility at the expense of taxpayers taking things too far?In various … [Read more...]
Search Results for: parking
Conservatives and Urbanism
Matthew Yglesias - Straight Talk on Gasoline on drilling and how conservative deviation from free-market principles has hurt the environment:Meanwhile, take something like the accessory dwellings issue. Here you have a bunch of regulations that make it illegal for people to live more densely. … [Read more...]
Neighborhood Walkability Scores
A recent Wall Street Journal blog post refers to a website called Walk Score. Walk Score will let you know the walkability of a neighborhood based on the address you type in. The site also features ranking of cities and neighborhoods.Here are the city rankings: 1. San Francisco, CA 2. New … [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...]
Want Density? Turn the Free Market Loose
Matthew Yglesias - What Price Density The solution, as Ryan Avent says, is to build denser communities. We ought to build more transit infrastructure, of course, but it's cheaper to use what we already have more intensively. And, of course, it's more practical to build new infrastructure if there's … [Read more...]
Roads: US vs Europe
Pick Your Road: The U.S. vs. Europe, by Bryan CaplanIn the U.S., we have low gas taxes, low car taxes, few tolls, strict zoning that leads developers to provide lots of free parking, low speed limits, lots of traffic enforcement, and lots of congestion.In Europe (France and Germany … [Read more...]
Private Streets in Brooklyn?
This isn't some crazy proposal, they have been private since the 20's and 30's. It seems there are advantages and disadvantages. You don't have to worry about street parking when you own the street, but you have to hire your own contractor to make repairs. My main concern is that those homeowners … [Read more...]
Abolition of Density Restrictions Would be Great for NYC In The Long Run
Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution asks a great question: How good would the abolition of zoning in New York City be? He argues that zoning restrictions prevent Manhattan from being a "forest of skyscrapers" such as Sao Paulo.Many of Manhattan's skyscrapers are much taller than typical Sao Paulo … [Read more...]