Market Urbanism

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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1. The fact that we even have to have a debate over whether residential development should be allowed in Midtown, where new residents will have perhaps a smaller impact on transportation infrastucture than anywhere else in the country (they can either walk to work or do a reverse train commute), is … [Read more...]

Annotated simplified DC land use map

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Our friends at BeyondDC have made a nifty little simplified map of the DC zoning code (yellow is residential, red is commercial, gray is park/institutional/industrial) out of GIS data provided by the local government. It's nice and all, but when you reduce such a beautifully complex and meticulous … [Read more...]

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1. NYT reports on dense suburban projects being scaled back across Long Island not because of financing constraints or the recession, but because local governments are refusing to accept the density. At the end it cites AvalonBay as saying that after the its rebuke on the Island, it will reconsider … [Read more...]

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1. NYT A-1 headline! Number of new single-family homes sold in February was at its lowest point since data was first collected in 1963, but multi-unit sales are up. 2. Lydia DePillis with an example of some abhorrent NIMBYism from DC. 3. Anti-laneway housing propaganda from Vancouver. It looks … [Read more...]

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1. PlaNYC 2.0 may try to tackle off-street minimum parking requirements for new development, though Transportation Alternatives and Tri-State Transportation Campaign are skeptical. 2. The TLC has been cracking down on illegal livery cab street hails as the Bloomberg administration considers … [Read more...]

Links: Transit worker wages, farmers markets, parking, and beyond!

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1. Austin Contrarian comes out in favor of a Republican proposal to lower bus drivers' wages. I wish more liberal urbanists (i.e., urbanists) would comment on issues like these. I don't see (m)any of them vociferously defending transit labor unions, but I also don't see them criticizing them for … [Read more...]

When “affordable housing” is just a random middle class housing subsidy

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Affordable housing and inclusionary zoning are complicated subjects and it's hard to sum up all my thoughts and objections to the schemes in one post, so I'm going to take the death-by-a-thousand-cuts approach. Today's installment: income eligibility levels. Now, the stated intent of affordable … [Read more...]

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