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Tag Author: Sandy Ikeda

Join us in Brooklyn for Jane’s Walk 2014

In addition to Sandy’s traditional walks in Brooklyn Heights, I will be hosting a walk through Downtown Brooklyn preceding Sandy’s Sunday walk. Here’s a link to my walk, although they mistakenly listed it for Saturday morning instead of Sunday morning.  Hopefully, they can fix this, because I can’t do Saturday morning!! After my Sunday walk, and a lunch break, I’ll be joining Sandy Ikeda’s annual walk through Brooklyn Heights at noon.  Market Urbanists often gather for a drink after Sandy’s walk.  Sandy will also be giving a Saturday walk at 5pm. See you Sunday morning at 9am in the Metrotech Commons – please do not come Saturday.  I’m a very tall guy, and I’ll wear a Brooklyn Basketball hat.

Meetup before Sandy’s Jane’s Walk this Sunday

From the comments and emails I’ve gotten, there will be a pretty decent turnout of Market Urbanists at Sandy Ikeda’s Jane’s Walk on Sunday, “Eye’s on Brooklyn Heights.” Here are the details from the site; Date: Sunday May 8, 2011 Time: 1:00pm-2:30pm Meeting Place: The tour will meet at the steps of Brooklyn’s Borough Hall (2nd stop on the #2/3 subway) and end at the Clark Street station of the #2/3 subway. One reader suggested we meet for beers beforehand, and recommended The Henry Street Ale House Let me know how that works for others. Now that I’m thinking about it – we may want to meet closer to Borough Hall where Sandy is starting the walk. O’Keefe’s on Court Street may work better: I’ll plan for noon – if you plan to be around earlier, shoot me an email. The best way to spot me is my height: 6′-5″. Or shoot me an email, and I’ll give you my phone number.

More Libertarians on Jane Jacobs

The Ludwig von Mises Institute publishes a podcast performed by Jeff Riggenbach called “The Libertarian Tradition”, which discusses significant figures in the libertarian movement.  The most recent edition is dedicated to Jane Jacobs, who’s ideas are highly regarded by many libertarians, despite the fact that she publicly distanced herself  from being associated with the term or movement.  It’s a great listen, and mentions fellow Market Urbanists and friends of the site, Sandy Ikeda and Thomas Schmidt.  It’s great to see more attention given to Jane Jacobs and urbanism by free market advocates. Mises Podcast on Jane Jacobs ______________________________ On a similar note, Market Urbanist, Sandy Ikeda will be hosting a “Jane’s Walk” in honor of Jane Jacobs in Brooklyn Heights.  Here’s a description from the site: Eyes on Brooklyn Heights The beautiful and historic neighborhood of Brooklyn Heights offers excellent examples of Jane Jacobs’ principles of urban diversity in action. Beginning at the steps of Brooklyn’s Borough Hall, we will stroll through residential and commercial streets while observing and talking about how the physical environment influences social activity and even economic and cultural development, both for good and for ill. We will be stopping at several points of interest, including the famous Promenade, and end near the #2/3 subway and a nice coffeehouse. Please wear comfortable footwear and weather-appropriate clothing, and be sure to have lots of questions. See you there! Date: Sunday May 8, 2011 Time: 1:00pm-2:30pm Meeting Place: The tour will meet at the steps of Brooklyn’s Borough Hall (2nd stop on the #2/3 subway) and end at the Clark Street station of the #2/3 subway. Host:Sandy Ikeda Host Organization: Purchase College www.purchase.edu Contact info: [email protected] I plan to attend.  It would be great to see some other Market Urbanists there!

Video: Sandy Ikeda on The Unintended Consequences of “Smart Growth”

I came across this video interview of economist Sandy Ikeda by the Mackinac Center. Sandy currently blogs at thinkmarkets and has contributed guest posts to Market Urbanism. I thought Sandy did a great job discussing many of the topics we cover in this site. Sandy is particularly insightful when it comes to the “dynamics of intervention” as it relates to how the planning philosophy in the early days of the automobile created living patterns now disdained by modern planners. Today, Smart Growth planners want to use top-down coercive methods to correct the wrongs of past planners top-down follies, but will they get it right this time? Check it out: The Unintended Consequences of “Smart Growth” from Mackinac Center on Vimeo. Update: Here’s what Sandy has to say at thinkmarkets…

The Nature of the Living City

Sandy Ikeda posted an abstract for a short essay he is contributing to a Festschrift honoring Jane Jacobs.  He quite eloquently describes the nature of the living city: A city is not a man-made thing.  Rather, it emerges from the actions of its inhabitants, who interact in unpredictable yet orderly ways.  Under the right conditions – the right “rules of the game” – what arises is vital, creative, radically unpredictable, and profitable:  the living city. Neither can it be inefficient, because that too presupposes a system-wide plan.  Both efficiency and inefficiency presume that we know how things ought to be, what success and failure look like, and that’s impossible in the urban dynamic.  Instead, borrowing from ecology (and certain heterodox schools of economic thought), we might say that a living city is a “dynamically stable” process, in which the forces of positive and negative feedback, as well as sudden mutation and diversity, combine under the right conditions to generate order through time.  It embodies trial and error, surpluses and shortages, apparently useless duplication, conflict and disappointment, trust and opportunism, and discovery and radical change.  These are in the nature of the living city. Another piece to look forward to!  Sounds like Sandy touches on some similar themes to Mathieu Helie’s upcoming piece on Emergent Urbanism. 

What Would Moses Do? (Robert Moses, that is…)

(Map of Robert Moses’ unbuilt proposals via “vanshnookenraggen.”) Sandy Ikeda blogs: If Moses were around today I don’t think he’d waste any time getting every major project he could think of “shovel ready” for hundreds of billions of stimulus money. While he’s no longer with us, I do fear that, with the incentive structure of the stimulus legislation and the knowledge problems that will accompany such massive and hurried construction, we’ll soon be seeing many incarnations of Moses rising up in cities around the country. So, not only will we have to live with ill-conceived mega-projects for decades to come, we’ll be subsidizing the birth of who-knows-how-many local despots who’ll be guiding urban policy for the foreseeable future.

Sandy Ikeda Guest-Blogging at Market Urbanism

When the New York Sun decided to shut down its press, the biggest loss to the blogosphere was Sanford Ikeda’s Culture of Congestion blog. At the Sun, Sandy blogged about cities, economics, politics, and related subjects. Sandford Ikeda is an Associate Professor of Economics at SUNY Purchase. Professor Ikeda is the author of Dynamics of the Mixed Economy: Toward a Theory of Interventionism, involved with the Katrina Project at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, and Past President of the Society for the Development of Austrian Economics. Much of Sandy’s work and blog posts has overlapped with Market Urbanism’s topics, and viewpoints. Sandy is also a fellow resident of Brooklyn, and admirer of cities. Naturally, I was very honored and excited that Sandy accepted my offer to publish his posts at Market Urbanism while he explores the many options available to him in the blogging world. I am certain Market Urbanism readers will enjoy Sandy’s contributions.

Sun Sets on Culture of Congestion

The New York Sun has decided to close up shop. To Market Urbanists, the greatest casualties are Sandy Ikeda’s blog, Culture of Congestion and Ed Glaeser’s articles. Sandy’s work has inspired me to read Jane Jacobs’ books (starting with The Death and Life of Great American Cities), and I plan to post some of my thoughts on what I’ve read so far. If you haven’t already, please check out the archives of Sandy’s and Ed’s writings. Ed Glaeser has begun to write articles for the NY Times’ Economix blog. Hopefully, Culture of Congestion will rise again soon.  I’ll keep you posted. Also, check out: Batesline – Sun sets

Links and Weekend Listening

I’ve been swamped in my day job, but want to share the following: The blog, Agents of Urbanism recently gave praise to Market Urbanism. Thanks Matthew! Please check out Agents of Urbanism and Life Without Buildings, who followed up on Agent of Urbanism’s praise. I enjoy both blogs. Carl Close wrote How “Urban Renewal” Destroyed San Francisco’s Fillmore District for The Independent Institute’s blog, The Beacon. And finally, I came across some fantastic lectures at the Foundation for Economic Education, by Sandy Ikeda. I highly recommend listening to the MP3s during your free time this weekend. He discusses Jane Jacobs, urbanism, history, sprawl, economics, and most things of interest to readers of Market Urbanism: Urban Planning Private Cities

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