Free Cities

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 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 ...

Cities are creatures of the state, so they have to obey. Residents are likely to suffer more and bigger potholes, further declining school test scores and higher taxes – meaning more people will flee the state or head to the suburbs. Here’s a look at some of the worst urban-related ...

California bill would loosen housing rules along the coast National commentators always have a field day discussing the unusual new progressive legislation that California’s lawmakers send to the governor, with the latest eye-popping new law raising the minimum wage for fast-food workers to $20 an hour. This year’s “crazy list” ...

Recently, Zócalo Public Square, a media enterprise affiliated with Arizona State University, published an essay asking the question, “How public is your favorite public park?” The essay, written by Kevin Loughran, an assistant professor of sociology at Temple University, walks through the rise of private ownership or management of public ...

Listen to PRI’s Wayne Winegarden discuss the Free Cities Index ranking of America’s most free and least free cities on the “David Webb Show” on Sirius XM Patriot Channel 125.

How new city can change how California envisions its future: Part Two Edward Ring  |  September 29, 2023 Building a new city from scratch on 50,000 acres of cattle ranches is an audacious goal, even for the coterie of Silicon Valley billionaires who have been identified as behind the project. ...

How new city can change how California envisions its future: Part One Edward Ring  |  September 22, 2023 It’s not news that California has a housing shortage, nor are the reasons for this shortage a mystery. For decades, California has restricted exurban development, passed building codes that are the most ...