Reading Hayek in HollandPhoto by Peter FurthDuring a working vacation in the Netherlands, I had the dissonant experience of reading Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom in one of the most comprehensively planned environments on earth. Hayek’s thesis is that central economic planning displaces … [Read more...]
Turn New York’s Speed Cameras Back On
On June 24 in Brooklyn, a driver in an SUV struck and killed four-year-old Luz Gonzalez, with many onlookers claiming the incident was a hit-and-run. The New York Police Department disagrees, and has refused to prosecute the driver, sparking multiple street protests. Beyond seeking justice for … [Read more...]
Addressing Local Knowledge
Four years ago my wife and I decided to take our son to a special and slightly unusual restaurant to celebrate his birthday. We were in Tokyo at the time and gave the taxi driver what we thought was the address for the restaurant – it had names and numbers on it. Cabbies in Tokyo, and in Japan in … [Read more...]
World City Profiles: European Villages Are Showcases Of Old Urbanism
There is always the lurking suspicion that great urbanism is a museum piece, something we cannot recreate. We have to console ourselves with guarding what’s left. Even then, some feel it unfit for ‘modern life,’ that humans cannot live as their recent ancestors had. Urbanists tend to celebrate … [Read more...]
Does Home-sharing Create Negative Externalities?
A decade or two ago, a traveler who wished to stay in a city temporarily had no alternative to a hotel. Even if the owner of a house or condominium wished to rent out a room for a short period of time, the costs of advertising in a newspaper would have at least partially canceled out the … [Read more...]
Urbanism In A Time Of Terror
Brussels, Belgium--I had recently moved from Los Angeles, my home of twenty years, to Brussels. It would be my first time living in a traditional city since becoming interested in urban design. So I was constantly looking for little urban insights and pleasures on the ground. For instance, I … [Read more...]
Glamour in streetscapes
A while ago I attended an Urban Land Institute event on development trends in Fairfax's Mosaic District. A presenter from the retail developer EDENS described their strategy of adding "sidewalk jewelry," a design technique used to entice shoppers to travel down sidewalks between stores. Having never … [Read more...]
Potential for Voluntary Infrastructure
Last fall I visited Budapest and learned some interesting history of the city's beautiful Chain Bridge. Before 1849, the small cities of Buda and Pest were connected by a temporary bridge that was only viable during warm months. In the winter, the bridge had to be taken down due to ice, making it … [Read more...]