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Anti-crime wave crashes over crime-soaked California cities
Anti-crime wave crashes over crime-soaked California cities by John Seiler | January 10, 2025 Like the tide moving in and out along its magnificent coastline, California’s crime policies oscillate between harshness and laxity, never getting it quite right. The crack epidemic and increase in violent crime of the 1980s led ...
Blog
Read the latest from PRI's Free Cities Center
Los Angeles’ rezoning plan is too little, too late
The Citywide Housing Incentive Program mainly eases regulations in high-density residential neighborhoods and commercial corridors. According to City News Service, “The ordinance is aimed at encouraging developers to build more affordable housing units in exchange for certain breaks on their projects, such as heights and parking regulations.” It provides further ...
Blog
Read the latest from PRI's Free Cities Center
U.S. cities can learn from Stockholm’s citizen democracy
American cities are obviously a mess. They are plagued by crime, corruption, homelessness, drug addiction, failing schools and vast inequalities of wealth. The underlying problems aren’t rocket science. It’s partly due to our professional politicians, whose motivational interests often do not coincide with the common good of city residents. It ...
Blog
Read the latest from PRI's Free Cities Center
SF’s Muni punishes its own riders for funding shortfalls
Muni’s latest data shows ridership on the city’s system of buses, cable cars, streetcars and light rail has rebounded dramatically from pandemic levels. It reports that ridership is at 74% of pre-pandemic levels and 92% of those levels on the weekends. The agency also trumpeted reductions in the number of ...
Blog
Growing federal debt will take its toll on city budgets
Growing federal debt will take its toll on city budgets John Seiler | December 20, 2024 IT HAS TO END SOMETIME. The national debt has soared above $36 trillion – and counting. And when the party does end, cities are going to be hit. How hard is for the future. ...
Blog
Read the latest from PRI's Free Cities Center
The market, not politics, should drive office conversions
At least everyone agrees there’s a problem. Americans’ preference for commute-free employment has yielded a surfeit of office vacancy. The phenomenon is a calamity for lessors plagued by plummeting income. Earlier this month, The Seattle Times reported that one of the city’s “most aggressive, and tenacious, developers” has “defaulted on a $240 million loan ...
Blog
Oregon housing demand down, but so is affordability
Oregon housing demand down, but so is affordability By Randal O’Toole | December 13, 2024 Nearly two years ago, Oregon’s Gov. Tina Kotek set a target of increasing the number of homes built in Oregon each year from 22,000 to 36,000. At the time, I argued that the subsidies Kotek was ...
Blog
Voters slam California with new local taxes and bonds
Voters slam California with new local taxes and bonds By John Seiler | December 6, 2024 California’s Nov. 5 election totals, finalized on Dec. 5 by county registrars, show voters slammed local taxpayers with around $2.3 billion in new direct tax increases. Plus $47.1 billion in new bond debt, which ...
Blog
Read the latest from PRI's Free Cities Center
Can cities keep up as California steps up housing lawsuits?
Housing Element parameters are determined by the state, guiding cities and counties to produce sufficient inventory to accommodate community needs. While Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) numbers get updated every eight years, what is planned for – and what is actually built – have long differed. The state this year ...
Blog
Read the latest from PRI's Free Cities Center
BOOK REVIEW: ‘Key to the City” – or the key to more control?
She is a “Mexican-American architect, attorney, professor and policymaker whose interdisciplinary work focuses on how law and policy can foster more equitable, sustainable, well-designed and connected places.” The author grew up in Houston, served for seven years as the head of Hartford, Conn.’s planning and zoning commission (her ex-husband was ...
Anti-crime wave crashes over crime-soaked California cities
Anti-crime wave crashes over crime-soaked California cities by John Seiler | January 10, 2025 Like the tide moving in and out along its magnificent coastline, California’s crime policies oscillate between harshness and laxity, never getting it quite right. The crack epidemic and increase in violent crime of the 1980s led ...
Read the latest from PRI's Free Cities Center
Los Angeles’ rezoning plan is too little, too late
The Citywide Housing Incentive Program mainly eases regulations in high-density residential neighborhoods and commercial corridors. According to City News Service, “The ordinance is aimed at encouraging developers to build more affordable housing units in exchange for certain breaks on their projects, such as heights and parking regulations.” It provides further ...
Read the latest from PRI's Free Cities Center
U.S. cities can learn from Stockholm’s citizen democracy
American cities are obviously a mess. They are plagued by crime, corruption, homelessness, drug addiction, failing schools and vast inequalities of wealth. The underlying problems aren’t rocket science. It’s partly due to our professional politicians, whose motivational interests often do not coincide with the common good of city residents. It ...
Read the latest from PRI's Free Cities Center
SF’s Muni punishes its own riders for funding shortfalls
Muni’s latest data shows ridership on the city’s system of buses, cable cars, streetcars and light rail has rebounded dramatically from pandemic levels. It reports that ridership is at 74% of pre-pandemic levels and 92% of those levels on the weekends. The agency also trumpeted reductions in the number of ...
Growing federal debt will take its toll on city budgets
Growing federal debt will take its toll on city budgets John Seiler | December 20, 2024 IT HAS TO END SOMETIME. The national debt has soared above $36 trillion – and counting. And when the party does end, cities are going to be hit. How hard is for the future. ...
Read the latest from PRI's Free Cities Center
The market, not politics, should drive office conversions
At least everyone agrees there’s a problem. Americans’ preference for commute-free employment has yielded a surfeit of office vacancy. The phenomenon is a calamity for lessors plagued by plummeting income. Earlier this month, The Seattle Times reported that one of the city’s “most aggressive, and tenacious, developers” has “defaulted on a $240 million loan ...
Oregon housing demand down, but so is affordability
Oregon housing demand down, but so is affordability By Randal O’Toole | December 13, 2024 Nearly two years ago, Oregon’s Gov. Tina Kotek set a target of increasing the number of homes built in Oregon each year from 22,000 to 36,000. At the time, I argued that the subsidies Kotek was ...
Voters slam California with new local taxes and bonds
Voters slam California with new local taxes and bonds By John Seiler | December 6, 2024 California’s Nov. 5 election totals, finalized on Dec. 5 by county registrars, show voters slammed local taxpayers with around $2.3 billion in new direct tax increases. Plus $47.1 billion in new bond debt, which ...
Read the latest from PRI's Free Cities Center
Can cities keep up as California steps up housing lawsuits?
Housing Element parameters are determined by the state, guiding cities and counties to produce sufficient inventory to accommodate community needs. While Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) numbers get updated every eight years, what is planned for – and what is actually built – have long differed. The state this year ...
Read the latest from PRI's Free Cities Center
BOOK REVIEW: ‘Key to the City” – or the key to more control?
She is a “Mexican-American architect, attorney, professor and policymaker whose interdisciplinary work focuses on how law and policy can foster more equitable, sustainable, well-designed and connected places.” The author grew up in Houston, served for seven years as the head of Hartford, Conn.’s planning and zoning commission (her ex-husband was ...
