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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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Liberty Machines™

December 31, 2017 By Jeff Fong

During an urbanist twitter free-for-all last week, the thoroughly awesome term "liberty machines" was used to describe the virtues of the car. The claim was made that cars let individuals go wherever they want, whenever they want and are therefore a ‘freedom enhancing’ form of … [Read more...]

Filed Under: infrastructure, Logistics & Transportation, sprawl, Transportation, Uncategorized Tagged With: infrastructure, libertymachines, Transportation

A Guide to Urban Development [Guia de Gestão Urbana]

May 10, 2017 By Jeff Fong

Caos Planejado, in conjunction with Editora BEI/ArqFuturo, recently published A Guide to Urban Development (Guia de Gestão Urbana) by Anthony Ling. The book offers best practices for urban design and although it was written for a Brazilian audience, many of its recommendations have universal … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Book Review, Development, Economics, housing, infrastructure, planning, Policy, privatization, Transportation, Uncategorized, zoning Tagged With: Brazil, infrastructure, mobility, policy, zoning

A Smart City in Your Pocket: From top-down command centers to bottom-up app markets

January 10, 2016 By Nolan Gray

Woman sitting on a bench in a park using a smartphone

 Cities, for most of human history, were dumb. At least, that’s what the “smart cities” movement might lead you to believe. Over the past few years, a chorus of acquisitive multinational tech corporations, trend-savvy politicians, and optimistic developers­­—an odd mixture of former SimCity … [Read more...]

Filed Under: infrastructure, Logistics & Transportation, planning, privatization, Transportation Tagged With: infrastructure, permissionless innovation, sharing economy, smart city, tech

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

March 23, 2009 By Adam Hengels

(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 … [Read more...]

Filed Under: corruption, history, infrastructure Tagged With: Author: Sandy Ikeda, infrastructure, nyc, robert moses, stimulus

How FDR’s TVA Went Wrong

March 3, 2009 By Adam Hengels

Jim Powell’s latest article at Reason discusses the Tennessee Valley Authority, FDR’s most ambitious infrastructure program: It was heralded as a program to build dams that would control floods, facilitate navigation, lift people out of poverty, and help America recover from the Great … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Economics, infrastructure Tagged With: infrastructure, reason, Roosevelt, TVA

Urban[ism] Legend: Positive NPV Infrastructure

January 12, 2009 By Adam Hengels

As Washington debates how many hundreds-of-billions of the nearly trillion-dollar stimulus will go towards infrastructure or to other spending/tax cut schemes, pundits claim that spending billions on "shovel ready" public works projects can effectively create jobs that will lead to recovery. As … [Read more...]

Filed Under: corruption, Economics, Free-market impostors, Transportation, Urban[ism] Legends Tagged With: boondoggles, budgets, construction, government, highways, infrastructure, paul krugman, roads, stimulus, Transportation, tyler cowen

Yes, Virginia, government roads really are government subsidized, and no, they don’t approximate freed-market outcomes

December 22, 2008 By Adam Hengels

Recently, I came accross an article by Charles Johnson, who blogs at Rad Geek.  The article had linked to a Market Urbanism post about how user fees and gas taxes fall well short of funding road use in the US. Charles' article further debunks the Urbanism Legend asserted by free-market imposters … [Read more...]

Filed Under: privatization, Transportation Tagged With: Economics, eminent domain, gasoline, highways, infrastructure, Interstate Highway System, libertarian, privatization

Urban[ism] Legend: Creating Jobs With Infrastructure

December 8, 2008 By Adam Hengels

This post is part of an ongoing series featured on Market Urbanism called Urbanism Legends. The Urbanism Legends series is intended to expose many of the myths about development and Urban Economics. (it's a play on the term: “Urban Legends” in case you didn’t catch that)Last week … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Environment, sprawl, Transportation, Urban[ism] Legends Tagged With: Barack Obama, carbon, Henry Hazlitt, infrastructure, Market, stimulus, subsidization, Urbanism

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