Free Cities
Blog
Absent State Leadership, California Cities Continue to Lead on Parking Deregulation
Recently, San Diego moved to eliminate minimum parking regulations for businesses near transit and in neighborhood commercial areas. As reported in the San Diego Union-Tribune, the measure—which ended the practice of local regulators telling certain walkable and transit-accessible businesses how many off-street parking spaces they must build—enjoyed unanimous support from ...
Blog
Criminals Respond To Incentives Just As Consumers Do
California seems to have become a plunderers’ paradise. Thieves have moved on from shoplifting with large garbage bags at drug stores to violent smash-and-run raids on retailers, some of them during the middle of the day. Neiman-Marcus, Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue, Louis Vuitton, and other stores from San Francisco to ...
Blog
First Data Shows Real Record of Controversial New DA Putting Public Safety at Risk
The San Francisco Chronicle recently asked if residents should “tolerate a high level of burglaries as a downside of city living, and focus on barricading their homes?” Or, if that’s not satisfactory, “should people who are repeatedly accused of stealing be targeted with rehabilitation services, or incarcerated so they can’t ...
Blog
Los Angeles Is Gearing Up to Ban Wood-Frame Construction. Renters Will Soon Pay the Price.
Over the summer, the Los Angeles City Council Public Safety Committee approved a proposal to expand Fire District 1, an anachronistic planning overlay that would effectively ban wood-frame construction in much of the city. Superficially premised as a measure to improve fire safety, the motion has been heavily promoted by ...
Blog
Are Schools Covering Up the School Crime Wave?
The scandal in Loudon County, Virginia, where the school superintendent and school board covered up the rape of a student, has made national headlines. National data indicates that such cover-ups may be occurring more frequently than the public realizes. In the Loudon County case, in June the local superintendent and ...
Blog
Single-Family Zoning Is Dead In California. Now What?
In late September, something big happened: SB 9 was signed into law, effectively ending single-family zoning in California. Depending on where you get your news, it was big for one of two very different reasons. To some, it heralded the end of the suburbs, an assault on the “suburban lifestyle ...
Agriculture
Despite Record Rainfall, California’s Politician-Created Drought Persists
Like most Sacramentans on Sunday, I was out in the pouring rain raking leaves out of the street gutters, trying to keep water from coming into the house during our record day of rainfall. Every year during moderate to heavy storms, I like to joke that I live on “Lake ...
Commentary
Real school crime – don’t blame parents
The National School Board Association’s recent letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland warning about “threats of violence and acts of intimidation” by parents distracts from the much larger problem of violence and crime in schools. In its letter, the NSBA does not cite any data to support its push to ...
Blog
Growing a Tree Infrastructure Makes Sense
In Pres. Biden’s $3.5 trillion pork reconciliation package, there’s a line item that even we limited government-types can get behind — planting trees. The question is, should the Federal government really be taking the lead? The New York Post article recently uncovered that Biden’s mega-spending bill provides for $3 billion ...
California
Zack Smith – Rogue Prosecutors
Our guest this week is Zack Smith, a legal fellow with the Heritage Foundation’s Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. Zack has been closely watching the growing movement of progressive prosecutors who flout the rule of law. In California, we see this in San Francisco and Los Angeles where ...
Absent State Leadership, California Cities Continue to Lead on Parking Deregulation
Recently, San Diego moved to eliminate minimum parking regulations for businesses near transit and in neighborhood commercial areas. As reported in the San Diego Union-Tribune, the measure—which ended the practice of local regulators telling certain walkable and transit-accessible businesses how many off-street parking spaces they must build—enjoyed unanimous support from ...
Criminals Respond To Incentives Just As Consumers Do
California seems to have become a plunderers’ paradise. Thieves have moved on from shoplifting with large garbage bags at drug stores to violent smash-and-run raids on retailers, some of them during the middle of the day. Neiman-Marcus, Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue, Louis Vuitton, and other stores from San Francisco to ...
First Data Shows Real Record of Controversial New DA Putting Public Safety at Risk
The San Francisco Chronicle recently asked if residents should “tolerate a high level of burglaries as a downside of city living, and focus on barricading their homes?” Or, if that’s not satisfactory, “should people who are repeatedly accused of stealing be targeted with rehabilitation services, or incarcerated so they can’t ...
Los Angeles Is Gearing Up to Ban Wood-Frame Construction. Renters Will Soon Pay the Price.
Over the summer, the Los Angeles City Council Public Safety Committee approved a proposal to expand Fire District 1, an anachronistic planning overlay that would effectively ban wood-frame construction in much of the city. Superficially premised as a measure to improve fire safety, the motion has been heavily promoted by ...
Are Schools Covering Up the School Crime Wave?
The scandal in Loudon County, Virginia, where the school superintendent and school board covered up the rape of a student, has made national headlines. National data indicates that such cover-ups may be occurring more frequently than the public realizes. In the Loudon County case, in June the local superintendent and ...
Single-Family Zoning Is Dead In California. Now What?
In late September, something big happened: SB 9 was signed into law, effectively ending single-family zoning in California. Depending on where you get your news, it was big for one of two very different reasons. To some, it heralded the end of the suburbs, an assault on the “suburban lifestyle ...
Despite Record Rainfall, California’s Politician-Created Drought Persists
Like most Sacramentans on Sunday, I was out in the pouring rain raking leaves out of the street gutters, trying to keep water from coming into the house during our record day of rainfall. Every year during moderate to heavy storms, I like to joke that I live on “Lake ...
Real school crime – don’t blame parents
The National School Board Association’s recent letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland warning about “threats of violence and acts of intimidation” by parents distracts from the much larger problem of violence and crime in schools. In its letter, the NSBA does not cite any data to support its push to ...
Growing a Tree Infrastructure Makes Sense
In Pres. Biden’s $3.5 trillion pork reconciliation package, there’s a line item that even we limited government-types can get behind — planting trees. The question is, should the Federal government really be taking the lead? The New York Post article recently uncovered that Biden’s mega-spending bill provides for $3 billion ...
Zack Smith – Rogue Prosecutors
Our guest this week is Zack Smith, a legal fellow with the Heritage Foundation’s Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. Zack has been closely watching the growing movement of progressive prosecutors who flout the rule of law. In California, we see this in San Francisco and Los Angeles where ...
