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Read latest from Free Cities Center
Coercion-free planning can lead to glorious results
Central planning, no matter if the target is an economy or a community, has generally had historically disastrous results. When the government plots and schemes the future, people are ultimately doomed to lower living standards at best, and misery, all too often. Yet central planning can work – but only …
Read latest from Free Cities Center
San Diego offers pragmatic model to restore downtown life
According to Neighborhood Scout, a data-driven organization that provides detailed insights into local crime rates at a far more granular level than national statistics, San Diego has 4 violent crimes and 19.3 property crimes per 1,000 residents. In contrast, Los Angeles has 8.4 violent crimes and 24.6 property crimes per …
California's Outmigration Problem is Growing Worse
More Are Fleeing California Due to Progressive Policies
In 2018-19, California lost not quite $10 billion in gross adjusted income to other states, a bit less than New York. The following year, New York still had the largest loss of adjusted gross income, nearly $20 billion, with California close behind. By 2020-21, California had taken the “lead,” tripling …
Read latest on CARE Courts
AB 1708 and Care Courts – A Step in the Right Direction
In the mid 1980s, I lived in Traverse City, Michigan, where I was a student at Great Lakes Maritime Academy. In the downtown, there was a diner eponymously named for its proprietor, head waitress, hostess, and friend to everyone, Stacy. Like a thousand diners in a thousand small towns, …
Private cities bypass ossified governments. Will California follow?
Private cities bypass ossified governments. Will California follow? By Thibault Serlet California’s public discourse about urbanism has become extremely pessimistic. A glimpse into some of the large-scale private cities – generally known as Special Economic Zones, or SEZs – popping up in developing countries might offer us some well-needed hope. …
Will we see the return of redevelopment agencies?
Redevelopment failed cities, but keeps trying for a comeback
This column was originally published in the American Spectator. Say what you will about Jerry Brown, but I’ll always think fondly of him because of his crowning achievement in his more-recent stint as governor. In 2011, he eliminated the state’s noxious, property-rights-destroying redevelopment agencies. He didn’t axe these locally controlled agencies entirely …
Energy Reality Coming at California Fast
“Life comes at you fast,” said the insurance company ad campaign earlier this century. In California, energy reality is coming fast and it doesn’t inspire confidence in the future. With a few exceptions, official Sacramento, its groupthink mélange of elected officials and unelected bureaucrats who wield great political power, have …
Has Criminal Justice Reform Gone Too Far?
Why is California experiencing more crime victimization?
The latest California crime trends in California are not encouraging. In 2022, Los Angeles had a sobering 2,106 more aggravated assaults compared to 2021, 41 percent of which were committed with weapons – for a total crime increase of over 11 percent. Police in the San Francisco Bay Area’s 15 most …
Prop 12 upheld by SCOTUS: What will ruling mean for farmers and pork lovers?
There was no clear-cut verdict in the decision with the justices offering different opinions on the two-pronged argument brought by the National Pork Producers Council and the American Farm Bureau Federation. Attorneys for the NPPC and AFBF argued Prop 12 violated the “dormant commerce clause” and imposed more cost on …
Read latest from Free Cities Center
Sense of community makes city living worth the hassles
It took my parents a long time to understand why I loved Philadelphia. Their confusion was understandable. They’d grown up and then lived in small Kansas towns pretty much their entire adult lives. I’d been raised in those same towns, went to college there, and then spent the first decade …
Read latest from Free Cities Center
Coercion-free planning can lead to glorious results
Central planning, no matter if the target is an economy or a community, has generally had historically disastrous results. When the government plots and schemes the future, people are ultimately doomed to lower living standards at best, and misery, all too often. Yet central planning can work – but only …
Read latest from Free Cities Center
San Diego offers pragmatic model to restore downtown life
According to Neighborhood Scout, a data-driven organization that provides detailed insights into local crime rates at a far more granular level than national statistics, San Diego has 4 violent crimes and 19.3 property crimes per 1,000 residents. In contrast, Los Angeles has 8.4 violent crimes and 24.6 property crimes per …
California's Outmigration Problem is Growing Worse
More Are Fleeing California Due to Progressive Policies
In 2018-19, California lost not quite $10 billion in gross adjusted income to other states, a bit less than New York. The following year, New York still had the largest loss of adjusted gross income, nearly $20 billion, with California close behind. By 2020-21, California had taken the “lead,” tripling …
Read latest on CARE Courts
AB 1708 and Care Courts – A Step in the Right Direction
In the mid 1980s, I lived in Traverse City, Michigan, where I was a student at Great Lakes Maritime Academy. In the downtown, there was a diner eponymously named for its proprietor, head waitress, hostess, and friend to everyone, Stacy. Like a thousand diners in a thousand small towns, …
Private cities bypass ossified governments. Will California follow?
Private cities bypass ossified governments. Will California follow? By Thibault Serlet California’s public discourse about urbanism has become extremely pessimistic. A glimpse into some of the large-scale private cities – generally known as Special Economic Zones, or SEZs – popping up in developing countries might offer us some well-needed hope. …
Will we see the return of redevelopment agencies?
Redevelopment failed cities, but keeps trying for a comeback
This column was originally published in the American Spectator. Say what you will about Jerry Brown, but I’ll always think fondly of him because of his crowning achievement in his more-recent stint as governor. In 2011, he eliminated the state’s noxious, property-rights-destroying redevelopment agencies. He didn’t axe these locally controlled agencies entirely …
Energy Reality Coming at California Fast
“Life comes at you fast,” said the insurance company ad campaign earlier this century. In California, energy reality is coming fast and it doesn’t inspire confidence in the future. With a few exceptions, official Sacramento, its groupthink mélange of elected officials and unelected bureaucrats who wield great political power, have …
Has Criminal Justice Reform Gone Too Far?
Why is California experiencing more crime victimization?
The latest California crime trends in California are not encouraging. In 2022, Los Angeles had a sobering 2,106 more aggravated assaults compared to 2021, 41 percent of which were committed with weapons – for a total crime increase of over 11 percent. Police in the San Francisco Bay Area’s 15 most …
Prop 12 upheld by SCOTUS: What will ruling mean for farmers and pork lovers?
There was no clear-cut verdict in the decision with the justices offering different opinions on the two-pronged argument brought by the National Pork Producers Council and the American Farm Bureau Federation. Attorneys for the NPPC and AFBF argued Prop 12 violated the “dormant commerce clause” and imposed more cost on …
Read latest from Free Cities Center
Sense of community makes city living worth the hassles
It took my parents a long time to understand why I loved Philadelphia. Their confusion was understandable. They’d grown up and then lived in small Kansas towns pretty much their entire adult lives. I’d been raised in those same towns, went to college there, and then spent the first decade …
