Housing
Blog
Read latest about government overregulation
By managing growth, planners make cities less livable
While Euclidean zoning has been credited with segregating developments that have incompatible uses – a chemical plant next to a school or a landfill right up against a residential district, for a couple of examples – it has a record of going too far. In some cases, planners “decided that ...
Blog
Soaking rich homeowners fails in Los Angeles
Soaking rich homeowners fails in Los Angeles By Randal O’Toole | June 9, 2023 To help fund the $1.3 billion that Los Angeles’ City Council believes it needs to house the homeless, the city decided to impose a “mansion tax” of 4 percent on the sales of any homes or ...
Blog
Arizona and Colorado Report: Power-hungry cities kill pro-housing zoning-reform bills
Arizona and Colorado Report: Power-hungry cities kill pro-housing zoning-reform bills by Sal Rodriguez Colorado and Arizona had a shot at passing substantive reform of development-stifling land-use regulations this year. But both efforts went down in the last few months thanks in large part to fierce opposition from city governments, which ...
California
Lee Ohanian – Why Californians Are Fleeing the State
Our guest this week is Hoover Institution senior fellow and UCLA professor Dr. Lee Ohanian.
Blog
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 ...
Blog
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 ...
Blog
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. ...
Blog
Read latest from Free Cities Center
New cities offer unpredictable but exciting urban future
Although it was thoroughly lost amid his travails as the most prosecuted ex-president in American history, on March 4, in a video released on his campaign website, Donald Trump proposed a national contest for urban developers to submit designs for new “Freedom Cities,” with 10 winning designs to be allocated federal land ...
Blog
True conservatives should welcome state rollback of housing restrictions
‘Local control’ still is government control
At the state level, the concurrent Republican values of “local control” and “limited government” can compete and even conflict. Republicans have long stood against unfunded state mandates on local government and onerous red tape on the private sector, as well we should. However, we should welcome state intervention to reduce ...
Blog
Read about debate over SB 9 and 10
Misguided fear and loathing over relaxed zoning rules
SB 9 essentially eliminated single-family-only zoning by allowing property owners – on a “by right” basis that avoids subjective local reviews – to subdivide their single-family properties and build additional units on the land provided it meets all the pre-existing local setback and land-use conditions. It would allow up to ...
Read latest about government overregulation
By managing growth, planners make cities less livable
While Euclidean zoning has been credited with segregating developments that have incompatible uses – a chemical plant next to a school or a landfill right up against a residential district, for a couple of examples – it has a record of going too far. In some cases, planners “decided that ...
Soaking rich homeowners fails in Los Angeles
Soaking rich homeowners fails in Los Angeles By Randal O’Toole | June 9, 2023 To help fund the $1.3 billion that Los Angeles’ City Council believes it needs to house the homeless, the city decided to impose a “mansion tax” of 4 percent on the sales of any homes or ...
Arizona and Colorado Report: Power-hungry cities kill pro-housing zoning-reform bills
Arizona and Colorado Report: Power-hungry cities kill pro-housing zoning-reform bills by Sal Rodriguez Colorado and Arizona had a shot at passing substantive reform of development-stifling land-use regulations this year. But both efforts went down in the last few months thanks in large part to fierce opposition from city governments, which ...
Lee Ohanian – Why Californians Are Fleeing the State
Our guest this week is Hoover Institution senior fellow and UCLA professor Dr. Lee Ohanian.
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 ...
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. ...
Read latest from Free Cities Center
New cities offer unpredictable but exciting urban future
Although it was thoroughly lost amid his travails as the most prosecuted ex-president in American history, on March 4, in a video released on his campaign website, Donald Trump proposed a national contest for urban developers to submit designs for new “Freedom Cities,” with 10 winning designs to be allocated federal land ...
True conservatives should welcome state rollback of housing restrictions
‘Local control’ still is government control
At the state level, the concurrent Republican values of “local control” and “limited government” can compete and even conflict. Republicans have long stood against unfunded state mandates on local government and onerous red tape on the private sector, as well we should. However, we should welcome state intervention to reduce ...
Read about debate over SB 9 and 10
Misguided fear and loathing over relaxed zoning rules
SB 9 essentially eliminated single-family-only zoning by allowing property owners – on a “by right” basis that avoids subjective local reviews – to subdivide their single-family properties and build additional units on the land provided it meets all the pre-existing local setback and land-use conditions. It would allow up to ...
