Steven Greenhut
Blog
Transit bailout will only delay the day of reckoning
Transit bailout will only delay the day of reckoning By Steven Greenhut | June 29, 2023 It was inevitable that the California Legislature would bail out the state’s ailing public-transportation systems, which are facing dire fiscal crises as federal pandemic aid dries up. Although he had resisted a cash infusion ...
Blog
Read excerpt from new Free Cities Center book
Providing us with the transportation that planners want
One need only spend a little time on a transit-oriented social-media page or reading the thoughts of urban-focused writers to detect a certain disdain toward the automobile, suburbia and the construction of road and freeway lanes. Such attitudes are not outliers, as any quick search of New Urbanist and pro-transit ...
Blog
Will we see the return of redevelopment agencies?
Redevelopment failed cities, but keeps trying for a comeback
This column was originally published in the American Spectator. Say what you will about Jerry Brown, but I’ll always think fondly of him because of his crowning achievement in his more-recent stint as governor. In 2011, he eliminated the state’s noxious, property-rights-destroying redevelopment agencies. He didn’t axe these locally controlled agencies entirely ...
Blog
Read about debate over SB 9 and 10
Misguided fear and loathing over relaxed zoning rules
SB 9 essentially eliminated single-family-only zoning by allowing property owners – on a “by right” basis that avoids subjective local reviews – to subdivide their single-family properties and build additional units on the land provided it meets all the pre-existing local setback and land-use conditions. It would allow up to ...
Blog
Public Employee Unions Are Obstacle to Urban Progress
Public Employee Unions Are Obstacle to Urban Progress A Free Cities Center Interview One of the key ways to improve urban life is to improve the level of public services offered in cities. People who flee some premier city for the suburbs or rural life will typically point to their ...
Commentary
Healthy cities matter – and not just to urbanites
Healthy cities matter – and not just to urbanites By Steven Greenhut Progressives loves cities, yet refuse to address the degree to which their policies have made urban life a bigger chore than needed. Conservatives depict cities as dystopian hellholes. They delight in highlighting the crime problems, poorly functional school ...
Blog
U.S. land ‘shortage’ is result of artificial growth limits
Some of the social-media responses to a Wall Street Journal article in September headlined, “The U.S. is Running Short of Land for Housing,” were heated. They proved – for anyone who has yet to realize it – that Tweeters and Facebook users might not always read posted articles particularly carefully ...
Blog
California pols push urbanism, as people flee cities
California pols push urbanism, as people flee cities Since the 1970s, California policy makers have embarked on a land-use strategy designed to promote “urbanism” – the idea that we all ought to live in dense housing developments, that suburban sprawl should be limited by government planning restrictions, and rural land should be ...
Book
NEW BOOK RELEASE – Back from Dystopia: A New Vision for Western Cities
NEW BOOK RELEASE Back from Dystopia: A New Vision for Western Cities Steven Greenhut Cities throughout the West face rising crime, soaring housing costs, a sprawling homelessness crisis and devastated downtown areas following two years of COVID restrictions and the aftermath of destructive protests. Policymakers typically address these and other ...
Blog
Union power makes urban reform nearly impossible
It’s well known that private-sector unions imposed higher costs and competitive disadvantages on companies that remained in cities. In a 2010 Cato Journal article, Stephen J. K. Walters explained that unions sparked their transformation “from engines of prosperity into areas afflicted by economic stagnation, chronic poverty, and all the social ...
Transit bailout will only delay the day of reckoning
Transit bailout will only delay the day of reckoning By Steven Greenhut | June 29, 2023 It was inevitable that the California Legislature would bail out the state’s ailing public-transportation systems, which are facing dire fiscal crises as federal pandemic aid dries up. Although he had resisted a cash infusion ...
Read excerpt from new Free Cities Center book
Providing us with the transportation that planners want
One need only spend a little time on a transit-oriented social-media page or reading the thoughts of urban-focused writers to detect a certain disdain toward the automobile, suburbia and the construction of road and freeway lanes. Such attitudes are not outliers, as any quick search of New Urbanist and pro-transit ...
Will we see the return of redevelopment agencies?
Redevelopment failed cities, but keeps trying for a comeback
This column was originally published in the American Spectator. Say what you will about Jerry Brown, but I’ll always think fondly of him because of his crowning achievement in his more-recent stint as governor. In 2011, he eliminated the state’s noxious, property-rights-destroying redevelopment agencies. He didn’t axe these locally controlled agencies entirely ...
Read about debate over SB 9 and 10
Misguided fear and loathing over relaxed zoning rules
SB 9 essentially eliminated single-family-only zoning by allowing property owners – on a “by right” basis that avoids subjective local reviews – to subdivide their single-family properties and build additional units on the land provided it meets all the pre-existing local setback and land-use conditions. It would allow up to ...
Public Employee Unions Are Obstacle to Urban Progress
Public Employee Unions Are Obstacle to Urban Progress A Free Cities Center Interview One of the key ways to improve urban life is to improve the level of public services offered in cities. People who flee some premier city for the suburbs or rural life will typically point to their ...
Healthy cities matter – and not just to urbanites
Healthy cities matter – and not just to urbanites By Steven Greenhut Progressives loves cities, yet refuse to address the degree to which their policies have made urban life a bigger chore than needed. Conservatives depict cities as dystopian hellholes. They delight in highlighting the crime problems, poorly functional school ...
U.S. land ‘shortage’ is result of artificial growth limits
Some of the social-media responses to a Wall Street Journal article in September headlined, “The U.S. is Running Short of Land for Housing,” were heated. They proved – for anyone who has yet to realize it – that Tweeters and Facebook users might not always read posted articles particularly carefully ...
California pols push urbanism, as people flee cities
California pols push urbanism, as people flee cities Since the 1970s, California policy makers have embarked on a land-use strategy designed to promote “urbanism” – the idea that we all ought to live in dense housing developments, that suburban sprawl should be limited by government planning restrictions, and rural land should be ...
NEW BOOK RELEASE – Back from Dystopia: A New Vision for Western Cities
NEW BOOK RELEASE Back from Dystopia: A New Vision for Western Cities Steven Greenhut Cities throughout the West face rising crime, soaring housing costs, a sprawling homelessness crisis and devastated downtown areas following two years of COVID restrictions and the aftermath of destructive protests. Policymakers typically address these and other ...
Union power makes urban reform nearly impossible
It’s well known that private-sector unions imposed higher costs and competitive disadvantages on companies that remained in cities. In a 2010 Cato Journal article, Stephen J. K. Walters explained that unions sparked their transformation “from engines of prosperity into areas afflicted by economic stagnation, chronic poverty, and all the social ...
