Free Cities
Blog
Read latest about road diets
Car-free cities about social engineering, not public demand
Scientific American insists that car-free cities are the future, because the data from facial analysis caught by surveillance cameras proves that “people do not like looking at cars.” Or maybe the trend is just another planning movement led by elitists who believe their vision of a city is the only ...
Blog
Time To Ask Why So Many San Francisco Homes Are Vacant
Time To Ask Why So ManySan Francisco Homes Are Vacant Steven Greenhut | November 3, 2023 Journalism 101 classes teach that every news story needs to include the five main Ws: Who, What, Where, When and Why. Yet most of the recent news reports about San Francisco’s newly implemented “Empty ...
Blog
Read how to revitalize urban downtowns
Revitalizing downtowns means focusing on the basics
It’s a scenario unfolding in downtowns across the U.S. after a pandemic that turned millions of Americans into remote workers, afflicting cities with vacant storefronts, crime concerns and fiscally strained transit systems,” reports Bloomberg. But it’s not just a matter of empty offices. People are spending less time in many downtowns. ...
Blog
Blame Bad Urban Planning for Youth Mental-Health Crisis
Blame bad urban planning for youth mental-health crisis By Kenneth Schrupp | October 27, 2023 The fundamental cause of the escalating mental-health crisis among young Americans is a topic of fierce debate. New state laws – such as Ohio’s Social Media Parental Notification Act – point the finger at social ...
Blog
Post-COVID travel has recovered – except for urban transit
Highways, airlines, and Amtrak all carried more travel in August 2023 than the same month before the pandemic, according to data recently released by the U.S. Department of Transportation. Urban transit, however, is languishing at less than 72%, and it would be even lower except that August had one more ...
Free Cities
Watch latest Free Cities Center video tour
Watch Video: Reimagining Scalable Solutions to Homelessness
Watch a video tour of Dignity Moves, a San Francisco non-profit that is reimagining scalable solutions to homelessness. Founder and CEO Elizabeth Funk takes PRI’s Wayne Winegarden on a tour of its San Francisco facility, then discusses her group’s work to address homelessness through interim supportive housing.
Commentary
Read about CA's growing outmigration problem
Californians are voting against Big Government, at least with their feet
People are clearly leaving California because of bad public policy choices. The state’s roads are poorly maintained. The cost of living is unaffordable. The streets are unsafe, the homelessness problem continues to fester, and economic opportunities are becoming scarcer. These results are consistent with the new Pacific Research Institute Free ...
Blog
Greening the ‘food desert’ by farming vacant urban land
Greening the ‘food desert’ by farming vacant urban land Edward Ring | October 20, 2023 When it comes to food, America’s cities enjoy precarious abundance. We take for granted the remarkable system that allows us close proximity to chilled and gleaming shelves, loaded with apricots from Spain, avocados from Mexico, ...
Blog
Will new California laws finally ease the housing shortage?
California’s twin housing and homelessness crises continue to fester. The Legislature in recent years passed some useful bills promoting housing construction by streamlining the local approval process, such as Senate Bills 9 and 10 from 2021. Yet cities remain plagued with homeless encampments. Housing prices, despite soaring interest rates that ...
Blog
‘Nail houses’ Serve as Monuments of Resistance to Planners
‘Nail houses’ serve as monuments of resistance to planners KERRY JACKSON | OCTOBER 13, 2023 Swedish economist Assar Lindbeck famously has said that outside of bombing it, rent control is the best way to destroy a city. Though not nearly as efficient as either of those, both planners and the ...
Read latest about road diets
Car-free cities about social engineering, not public demand
Scientific American insists that car-free cities are the future, because the data from facial analysis caught by surveillance cameras proves that “people do not like looking at cars.” Or maybe the trend is just another planning movement led by elitists who believe their vision of a city is the only ...
Time To Ask Why So Many San Francisco Homes Are Vacant
Time To Ask Why So ManySan Francisco Homes Are Vacant Steven Greenhut | November 3, 2023 Journalism 101 classes teach that every news story needs to include the five main Ws: Who, What, Where, When and Why. Yet most of the recent news reports about San Francisco’s newly implemented “Empty ...
Read how to revitalize urban downtowns
Revitalizing downtowns means focusing on the basics
It’s a scenario unfolding in downtowns across the U.S. after a pandemic that turned millions of Americans into remote workers, afflicting cities with vacant storefronts, crime concerns and fiscally strained transit systems,” reports Bloomberg. But it’s not just a matter of empty offices. People are spending less time in many downtowns. ...
Blame Bad Urban Planning for Youth Mental-Health Crisis
Blame bad urban planning for youth mental-health crisis By Kenneth Schrupp | October 27, 2023 The fundamental cause of the escalating mental-health crisis among young Americans is a topic of fierce debate. New state laws – such as Ohio’s Social Media Parental Notification Act – point the finger at social ...
Post-COVID travel has recovered – except for urban transit
Highways, airlines, and Amtrak all carried more travel in August 2023 than the same month before the pandemic, according to data recently released by the U.S. Department of Transportation. Urban transit, however, is languishing at less than 72%, and it would be even lower except that August had one more ...
Watch latest Free Cities Center video tour
Watch Video: Reimagining Scalable Solutions to Homelessness
Watch a video tour of Dignity Moves, a San Francisco non-profit that is reimagining scalable solutions to homelessness. Founder and CEO Elizabeth Funk takes PRI’s Wayne Winegarden on a tour of its San Francisco facility, then discusses her group’s work to address homelessness through interim supportive housing.
Read about CA's growing outmigration problem
Californians are voting against Big Government, at least with their feet
People are clearly leaving California because of bad public policy choices. The state’s roads are poorly maintained. The cost of living is unaffordable. The streets are unsafe, the homelessness problem continues to fester, and economic opportunities are becoming scarcer. These results are consistent with the new Pacific Research Institute Free ...
Greening the ‘food desert’ by farming vacant urban land
Greening the ‘food desert’ by farming vacant urban land Edward Ring | October 20, 2023 When it comes to food, America’s cities enjoy precarious abundance. We take for granted the remarkable system that allows us close proximity to chilled and gleaming shelves, loaded with apricots from Spain, avocados from Mexico, ...
Will new California laws finally ease the housing shortage?
California’s twin housing and homelessness crises continue to fester. The Legislature in recent years passed some useful bills promoting housing construction by streamlining the local approval process, such as Senate Bills 9 and 10 from 2021. Yet cities remain plagued with homeless encampments. Housing prices, despite soaring interest rates that ...
‘Nail houses’ Serve as Monuments of Resistance to Planners
‘Nail houses’ serve as monuments of resistance to planners KERRY JACKSON | OCTOBER 13, 2023 Swedish economist Assar Lindbeck famously has said that outside of bombing it, rent control is the best way to destroy a city. Though not nearly as efficient as either of those, both planners and the ...
