If you read one book about Japan this year, it should be the beautiful, new Emergent Tokyo: Designing the Spontaneous City by Jorge Almazan and his Studiolab colleagues, including Joe McReynolds. But if you read two books about Japan, as you should, the second one should be André Sorensen's … [Read more...]
California should indeed build new cities – but don’t let Nathan J. Robinson anywhere near them
Urbanist and YIMBY Twitter had a field day dunking on Nathan J. Robinson, whose essay in his publication Current Affairs (yesterday's tagline: "the one thing left that isn't disappointing") called for building new cities in California.The essay was a typical of the "anti-anti-NIMBY" genre: he … [Read more...]
Houston Impressions
Given that I've written a few papers about Harris County, Texas, and even helped republish a book about the city of Houston, it's a little embarrassing to admit I had never been there. So when a Canadian buddy suggested meeting up in the Bayou City for barbeque ahead of his conference there, I … [Read more...]
Are Dollar Stores Wiping Out Grocery Stores?
I had always thought dollar stores were a nice thing to have in an urban neighborhood, but recently they have become controversial. Some cities have tried to limit their growth, based on the theory that "they impede opportunities for grocery stores and other businesses to take root and grow." … [Read more...]
For once I agree with the NIMBYs: please don’t turn my neighborhood into Dubai- because Dubai isn’t dense enough!
One common argument against new housing is that it will turn "[neighborhood at issue] into Dubai." Evidently, some people think Dubai is a hellscape of super-dense skyscapers.In fact, Many Dubai neighborhoods aren't very dense at all.There is one Dubai neighborhood that is more dense than … [Read more...]
Learning from Astor Street
One common argument against mixing housing types and densities is that if housing type A (for example, townhouses or single-family homes) is mixed with housing type B (for example, condos), the neighborhood will somehow be "ruined" for residents of the less dense housing types.Last week, my new … [Read more...]
The Truth About “Red Vienna”: Its a YIMBY Paradise!
One common leftist argument against new housing is the "Red Vienna" argument: the claim that housing can only be affordable in places where the government dominates the housing market. Supporters of this claim like to mention Vienna, where (according to progressive lore) Big Brother builds lots and … [Read more...]
A great new paper on how government fights walking
Many readers of this blog know that government subsidizes driving- not just through road spending, but also through land use regulations that make walking and transit use inconvenient and dangerous. Gregory Shill, a professor at the University of Iowa College of Law, has written an excellent … [Read more...]