Free Cities
Featured
Watch Tour: Increasing Housing Density Can Build Thriving Neighborhoods
Watch as Steven Greenhut of PRI’s Free Cities Center and California YIMBY director of communications Matthew Lewis go on a tour of Berkeley to see first hand how denser, multi-family housing units and exist in harmony with single-family homes and create thriving neighborhoods.
Blog
‘Parasitic’ architecture offers a way to boost housing density
The concept is attractive. Taking advantage of an existing superstructure and utility conduits, developers can simply add new units on the sides and top of a residential building. In theory, this can save money, preserve the original building and create new housing in areas where housing tends to be in ...
Blog
Spiraling pension costs still crowding out city services
Spiraling pension costs still crowding out city services by Edward Ring About 20 years ago, I read an ad in a local Sacramento newspaper that said, “Get a government job and become an instant millionaire.” The ad described how public officials in California enjoyed benefits private sector employees can rarely ...
Blog
‘Free market’ cities give urban fiefdoms some competition
A tangle of encrusted bureaucracies and counterproductive regulations has made it inordinately difficult for urban residents to live productive and affluent lives. Rent control. Zoning. Central planning. Tenant boards. Parking minimums. Most urban problems, from decrepit housing to street crime, are largely solvable, but politics is typically the enemy of ...
Commentary
Planners push transit, but it’s a hard sell in Western cities
Planners push transit, but it’s a hard sell in Western cities by Wendell Cox Over the six decades that transit subsidies have been virtually universal, governments and media have urged people to give up driving and switch to transit. Yet transit’s share of total urban travel was near modern lows ...
Blog
Pothole vigilantes fill in for the government’s failure
One of my favorite movies is “Brazil,” by the Monty Python comedy troupe’s alum Terry Gilliam. In the most-telling scene, Harry Tuttle, played by Robert De Niro, breaks into an apartment, not to rob it, but to fix a broken air conditioning system. That’s because the vast government bureaucracy, Central ...
Blog
Simple solutions that boost neighborhood healthcare
Simple solutions that boost neighborhood healthcare by McKenzie Richards Perhaps I should not have moved to Los Angeles given that I hate driving. Driving here – and in any city, really – can be chaotic, unpredictable and time-consuming. For a recent doctor’s appointment, I opted to walk instead. Never having ...
Blog
Free money plan is thin gruel for cities’ starving artists
Starve no more, Sacramento artists. The City Council is apparently moving forward with a plan to offer guaranteed income to creative types in the city. Guaranteed income, often called Universal Basic Income, gives free money to those deemed in need of it by the government. Focusing this latest effort on ...
Blog
How a ‘perfect storm’ killed an LA philanthropist
How a ‘perfect storm’ killed an LA philanthropist BY STEVE SMITH The murder of philanthropist Jaqueline Avant, the wife of famed music producer (“The Godfather of Black Music”) Clarence Avant, sent shock waves throughout Los Angeles society. Her death, during a home-invasion robbery on Dec. 1, 2021, not only shattered ...
Blog
Los Angeles: the city that organized labor wrecked
Los Angeles kicked off its 2022 Indigenous Peoples Day celebration in inimitable style, with the release of a secret recording in which top Latino city officials are caught disparaging indigenous people – as well as African Americans, Armenians, Jews and (generally lost in the reporting) “white guys.” City Council President ...
Watch Tour: Increasing Housing Density Can Build Thriving Neighborhoods
Watch as Steven Greenhut of PRI’s Free Cities Center and California YIMBY director of communications Matthew Lewis go on a tour of Berkeley to see first hand how denser, multi-family housing units and exist in harmony with single-family homes and create thriving neighborhoods.
‘Parasitic’ architecture offers a way to boost housing density
The concept is attractive. Taking advantage of an existing superstructure and utility conduits, developers can simply add new units on the sides and top of a residential building. In theory, this can save money, preserve the original building and create new housing in areas where housing tends to be in ...
Spiraling pension costs still crowding out city services
Spiraling pension costs still crowding out city services by Edward Ring About 20 years ago, I read an ad in a local Sacramento newspaper that said, “Get a government job and become an instant millionaire.” The ad described how public officials in California enjoyed benefits private sector employees can rarely ...
‘Free market’ cities give urban fiefdoms some competition
A tangle of encrusted bureaucracies and counterproductive regulations has made it inordinately difficult for urban residents to live productive and affluent lives. Rent control. Zoning. Central planning. Tenant boards. Parking minimums. Most urban problems, from decrepit housing to street crime, are largely solvable, but politics is typically the enemy of ...
Planners push transit, but it’s a hard sell in Western cities
Planners push transit, but it’s a hard sell in Western cities by Wendell Cox Over the six decades that transit subsidies have been virtually universal, governments and media have urged people to give up driving and switch to transit. Yet transit’s share of total urban travel was near modern lows ...
Pothole vigilantes fill in for the government’s failure
One of my favorite movies is “Brazil,” by the Monty Python comedy troupe’s alum Terry Gilliam. In the most-telling scene, Harry Tuttle, played by Robert De Niro, breaks into an apartment, not to rob it, but to fix a broken air conditioning system. That’s because the vast government bureaucracy, Central ...
Simple solutions that boost neighborhood healthcare
Simple solutions that boost neighborhood healthcare by McKenzie Richards Perhaps I should not have moved to Los Angeles given that I hate driving. Driving here – and in any city, really – can be chaotic, unpredictable and time-consuming. For a recent doctor’s appointment, I opted to walk instead. Never having ...
Free money plan is thin gruel for cities’ starving artists
Starve no more, Sacramento artists. The City Council is apparently moving forward with a plan to offer guaranteed income to creative types in the city. Guaranteed income, often called Universal Basic Income, gives free money to those deemed in need of it by the government. Focusing this latest effort on ...
How a ‘perfect storm’ killed an LA philanthropist
How a ‘perfect storm’ killed an LA philanthropist BY STEVE SMITH The murder of philanthropist Jaqueline Avant, the wife of famed music producer (“The Godfather of Black Music”) Clarence Avant, sent shock waves throughout Los Angeles society. Her death, during a home-invasion robbery on Dec. 1, 2021, not only shattered ...
Los Angeles: the city that organized labor wrecked
Los Angeles kicked off its 2022 Indigenous Peoples Day celebration in inimitable style, with the release of a secret recording in which top Latino city officials are caught disparaging indigenous people – as well as African Americans, Armenians, Jews and (generally lost in the reporting) “white guys.” City Council President ...
