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.

“Curb Rights” at 20: A Summary and Review

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At 4:30 am, alarms on my cellphone and tablet start beeping, just enough out of sync to prompt me to get up and turn them off. By 5:00 am, I riding as a passenger along an unusually sedate New Jersey Turnpike, making friendly conversation with my driver and survey partner to make sure he stays … [Read more...]

Rothbard The Urbanist Part 7: Pricing Highways

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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...]

Private parking contracting giving ‘privatization’ a bad name

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In the past Market Urbanism has been lukewarm on parking "privatization" (Adam on Chicago and me on LA), but I'm becoming more and more convinced that it's a bad idea. To start off with, these "privatizations" are actually private contracting schemes – the "owners" are barely even allowed to set … [Read more...]

Rothbard The Urbanist Part 6: Traffic Control

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Maybe the delay in posts led you to believe the Rothbard Series was complete.  The good news is that there are a few more posts to go, and the ones coming up next should be the most interesting to urbanists. If you haven’t kept up with our discussion, Murray Rothbard’s classic For A New Liberty … [Read more...]

Rothbard the Urbanist Part 3: Prevention of Blockades

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In the last post, we discussed the first paragraphs of chapter 11 of Murray Rothbard's For A New Liberty. (available free from Mises.org as pdf, web page, and audio book) Those paragraphs discussed the private ownership of all land, including streets and roads. Rothbard clearly and concisely … [Read more...]

Rothbard the Urbanist Part 2: Safe Streets

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The recent post, Public Education’s Role in Sprawl and Exclusion generated some interest and fantastic comments.   I recommend reading Murray Rothbard's For a New Liberty in its entirety.  It is elegant in its consistently radical application of principles.  It is available for free from the Mises … [Read more...]

Block vs Poole: The Public-Private Partnership Debate

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The Orange County Register’s Freedom Politics website (check out my rent control article FreePo published in March) features articles discussing two differing takes on road privatization from notable scholars Walter Block and Robert Poole. In Robert Poole’s article, he discusses the merits of the … [Read more...]

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