Free Cities
Blog
Rent control is destroying a city near you
In 1977, President Jimmy Carter stood on a vacant lot on Charlotte Street in the South Bronx, surrounded by empty, burned-out buildings, something reminiscent of Berlin at the end of World War II. The scene looked like something from a scene in “Escape from New York,” but Carter promised he ...
Agriculture
Can big cities become an agricultural hotbed?
Over 4 billion people have joined the global population in the last 50 years, putting stress on available farmland, water and fertilizer. At the same time, the capacity of the planet to absorb farm waste – toxic farm runoff contaminating aquifers and rivers – has stretched the limit. Nearly 8 ...
Blog
‘Housing First’ puts lofty goals above real-world results
Proponents of housing first claim that housing is a basic human right, and a permanent and stable home is the best platform from which to help people overcome the challenges that led to their homelessness, including the problems of mental illness and addiction. As a result of this premise, ...
Blog
About Free Cities Center
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 urban problems in a piecemeal fashion. They fail to understand what makes great cities ...
Free Cities
California Think Tank Launches New ‘Free Cities Center’ to Incubate Free Market Ideas to Improve Cities
Pacific Research Institute today launched the “Free Cities Center,” an ambitious initiative cultivating innovative ideas to improve urban life based around freedom and property rights – not government.
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 ...
California
OC Rescue Mission: How a Private Charity is Turning Around Lives More Effectively Than Government
Watch video tour of the Orange County Rescue Mission and interview with president Jim Palmer to learn how the private charity is turning lives around more effectively than traditional government homeless programs.
Blog
Urban bike lanes no answer to climate change ‘code red’
But not in California, where the barriers to having a constructive debate about this issue are many. They start with the huge logical gap between the state’s goal to have “eligible” renewable power sources and zero-carbon resources supply 100 percent of California’s electricity retail sales and the electricity used by ...
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 ...
Blog
First thing we do, let’s retrain all the planners
As a group of rebels bantered about the possibilities of an England with a new king in William Shakespeare’s “Henry The VI,” Dick the Butcher suggests “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” Though the (likely sarcastic) comment resonates with many, we need to keep lawyers around. ...
Rent control is destroying a city near you
In 1977, President Jimmy Carter stood on a vacant lot on Charlotte Street in the South Bronx, surrounded by empty, burned-out buildings, something reminiscent of Berlin at the end of World War II. The scene looked like something from a scene in “Escape from New York,” but Carter promised he ...
Can big cities become an agricultural hotbed?
Over 4 billion people have joined the global population in the last 50 years, putting stress on available farmland, water and fertilizer. At the same time, the capacity of the planet to absorb farm waste – toxic farm runoff contaminating aquifers and rivers – has stretched the limit. Nearly 8 ...
‘Housing First’ puts lofty goals above real-world results
Proponents of housing first claim that housing is a basic human right, and a permanent and stable home is the best platform from which to help people overcome the challenges that led to their homelessness, including the problems of mental illness and addiction. As a result of this premise, ...
About Free Cities Center
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 urban problems in a piecemeal fashion. They fail to understand what makes great cities ...
California Think Tank Launches New ‘Free Cities Center’ to Incubate Free Market Ideas to Improve Cities
Pacific Research Institute today launched the “Free Cities Center,” an ambitious initiative cultivating innovative ideas to improve urban life based around freedom and property rights – not government.
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 ...
OC Rescue Mission: How a Private Charity is Turning Around Lives More Effectively Than Government
Watch video tour of the Orange County Rescue Mission and interview with president Jim Palmer to learn how the private charity is turning lives around more effectively than traditional government homeless programs.
Urban bike lanes no answer to climate change ‘code red’
But not in California, where the barriers to having a constructive debate about this issue are many. They start with the huge logical gap between the state’s goal to have “eligible” renewable power sources and zero-carbon resources supply 100 percent of California’s electricity retail sales and the electricity used by ...
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 ...
First thing we do, let’s retrain all the planners
As a group of rebels bantered about the possibilities of an England with a new king in William Shakespeare’s “Henry The VI,” Dick the Butcher suggests “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” Though the (likely sarcastic) comment resonates with many, we need to keep lawyers around. ...
