Free Cities
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BOOK REVIEW: ‘Abundance’ by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson
BOOK REVIEW: ‘Abundance’ By Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson By Matthew Fleming | July 25, 2025 “Abundance,” a new book by liberal thought leaders Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, makes the case that a sustainable future doesn’t need to be driven by the politics of scarcity we see dominating America’s urban ...
Blog
Read the latest from PRI's Free Cities Center
California’s obsession with density limits housing growth
Morphing from a once-reasonable requirement that building permit applicants report on the “significant environmental impact” of their construction project and how they intend to mitigate that impact, CEQA is now a process-heavy, bureaucratic beast that delays projects for years and costs developers millions. Of all the ways California’s Legislature and ...
Blog
Legislative whiffs—and a few wins—on state housing reform
Legislative whiffs—and a few wins—on state housing reform In a recent piece for RealClearInvestigations, urban experts Joel Kotkin and Wendell Cox lamented that “housing affordability stands at the lowest level ever recorded, while one in three Americans now spend over 30% of their income on mortgage or rent.” Try telling ...
Blog
Read the latest from PRI's Free Cities Center
Newsom wisely uses political capital to secure CEQA reform
Gov. Gavin Newsom isn’t afraid to step into the political fray when it comes to standing up to President Donald Trump over national issues that impact California. He’s not always wrong when he sues the administration or speaks out against, say, ICE raids in Los Angeles. But most of those high-profile actions ...
Blog
Parking deregulation helps cities and promotes property rights
Parking deregulation helps cities and promotes property rights By D. Dowd Muska | July 11, 2025 You can fight city hall. But if the dispute involves parking, don’t expect the battle to be brief. That’s the bitter and expensive lesson learned by Azael “Oz” Sepulveda, an auto mechanic in Pasadena, Texas. For ...
Blog
Read the latest from PRI's Free Cities Center
Los Angeles pursues scarcity with short-term rental crackdown
When it comes to its perennial housing crisis, the city of Los Angeles will seek out any scapegoat it can find if it means avoiding having to admit the city’s own policies are at the root of the problem. It should come as no surprise that the city permitted just ...
Blog
Read the latest about the fight to end government green mandates
Senate may save California from itself by ending EV mandate
The Senate voted 51-44 vote to revoke an EPA waiver that allowed the state to set emission standards stricter than those set by the federal government. Earlier this month, President Donald Trump signed the measure as well as two related ones. In 2020, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order ...
Free Cities
Watch the Free Cities Center tour of Roseville’s thriving downtown
Watch as Free Cities Center director Steven Greenhut takes a tour of the city of Roseville’s thriving downtown. Learn what makes this downtown so vibrant and why it is so important for suburban communities to have downtowns. We’ll also visit of one of the downtown Roseville’s successful businesses – ...
Blog
Despite fast-track promises, LA rebuilding is mired in red tape
More than 18,000 structures were burned in Los Angeles County in January. The greatest losses were in the Pacific Palisades and Altadena. While updating the recovery “progress” more than three months ago, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass vowed that she was “committed to rebuilding” this community at “lightning speed.” “I just ...
Blog
Regulation bottlenecks impede state’s infrastructure grants
Regulation bottlenecks impede state’s infrastructure grants by Sarah Downey | June 26, 2025 Editor’s Note: While the Free Cities Center advocates for regulations that encourage market-rate construction rather than affordable-housing subsidies, it’s useful to look at the status of the myriad grant programs that the state government is offering—and the ...
BOOK REVIEW: ‘Abundance’ by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson
BOOK REVIEW: ‘Abundance’ By Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson By Matthew Fleming | July 25, 2025 “Abundance,” a new book by liberal thought leaders Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, makes the case that a sustainable future doesn’t need to be driven by the politics of scarcity we see dominating America’s urban ...
Read the latest from PRI's Free Cities Center
California’s obsession with density limits housing growth
Morphing from a once-reasonable requirement that building permit applicants report on the “significant environmental impact” of their construction project and how they intend to mitigate that impact, CEQA is now a process-heavy, bureaucratic beast that delays projects for years and costs developers millions. Of all the ways California’s Legislature and ...
Legislative whiffs—and a few wins—on state housing reform
Legislative whiffs—and a few wins—on state housing reform In a recent piece for RealClearInvestigations, urban experts Joel Kotkin and Wendell Cox lamented that “housing affordability stands at the lowest level ever recorded, while one in three Americans now spend over 30% of their income on mortgage or rent.” Try telling ...
Read the latest from PRI's Free Cities Center
Newsom wisely uses political capital to secure CEQA reform
Gov. Gavin Newsom isn’t afraid to step into the political fray when it comes to standing up to President Donald Trump over national issues that impact California. He’s not always wrong when he sues the administration or speaks out against, say, ICE raids in Los Angeles. But most of those high-profile actions ...
Parking deregulation helps cities and promotes property rights
Parking deregulation helps cities and promotes property rights By D. Dowd Muska | July 11, 2025 You can fight city hall. But if the dispute involves parking, don’t expect the battle to be brief. That’s the bitter and expensive lesson learned by Azael “Oz” Sepulveda, an auto mechanic in Pasadena, Texas. For ...
Read the latest from PRI's Free Cities Center
Los Angeles pursues scarcity with short-term rental crackdown
When it comes to its perennial housing crisis, the city of Los Angeles will seek out any scapegoat it can find if it means avoiding having to admit the city’s own policies are at the root of the problem. It should come as no surprise that the city permitted just ...
Read the latest about the fight to end government green mandates
Senate may save California from itself by ending EV mandate
The Senate voted 51-44 vote to revoke an EPA waiver that allowed the state to set emission standards stricter than those set by the federal government. Earlier this month, President Donald Trump signed the measure as well as two related ones. In 2020, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order ...
Watch the Free Cities Center tour of Roseville’s thriving downtown
Watch as Free Cities Center director Steven Greenhut takes a tour of the city of Roseville’s thriving downtown. Learn what makes this downtown so vibrant and why it is so important for suburban communities to have downtowns. We’ll also visit of one of the downtown Roseville’s successful businesses – ...
Despite fast-track promises, LA rebuilding is mired in red tape
More than 18,000 structures were burned in Los Angeles County in January. The greatest losses were in the Pacific Palisades and Altadena. While updating the recovery “progress” more than three months ago, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass vowed that she was “committed to rebuilding” this community at “lightning speed.” “I just ...
Regulation bottlenecks impede state’s infrastructure grants
Regulation bottlenecks impede state’s infrastructure grants by Sarah Downey | June 26, 2025 Editor’s Note: While the Free Cities Center advocates for regulations that encourage market-rate construction rather than affordable-housing subsidies, it’s useful to look at the status of the myriad grant programs that the state government is offering—and the ...
