Urban Renewal

Denver wisely repeals its minimum parking mandates By Sal Rodriguez  |  November 7, 2025 The post-World War II years brought with it many things Americans have taken for granted: economic prosperity, suburban living and minimum parking requirements. Along with the growing prevalence of personal vehicles through the 1950s and 1960s ...

Mayor Daniel Lurie slashes red tape in San Francisco By Sal Rodriguez | September 15, 2025 Since taking office in January, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie has made streamlining his city’s notoriously challenging regulatory processes a top priority. In February, Lurie established PermitSF, a multi-agency effort tasked with speeding up ...

The well-worn stereotypes of urban sophisticates versus country bumpkins took a hit in July when an up-and-coming French economist explained her latest findings in The Economist, a publication with more than 1.2 million subscribers globally and significant influence with policymakers in the English-speaking world. “Some groups are more likely than others to see the world ...

BOOK REVIEW: ‘Abundance’ By Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson By Matthew Fleming  |  July 25, 2025 “Abundance,” a new book by liberal thought leaders Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, makes the case that a sustainable future doesn’t need to be driven by the politics of scarcity we see dominating America’s urban ...

Watch as Free Cities Center director Steven Greenhut takes a tour of the city of Roseville’s thriving downtown.  Learn what makes this downtown so vibrant and why it is so important for suburban communities to have downtowns.   We’ll also visit of one of the downtown Roseville’s successful businesses – ...

To be charitable, miners brave enough to go digging can discover occasional nuggets of value in Madrigal’s ponderous, and entirely predictable, jeremiad. For example: Oakland had its own version of the urban-renewal thuggery that would eventually lead to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Kelo v. City of New London. In ...

Months after election, is crime still a potent urban issue? Passed by 68% of voters last November 5, Proposition 36 increased penalties for certain drug offenses and for thefts under $950. On the same day, Nathan Hochman defeated Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón, 65% to 35%. Gascón was a ...

Single-Family Homes Don’t Fulfill Everyone’s Dreams – Or Budgets By Thomas Irwin | March 28, 2025 As the father of two young children, one of my primary roles is to be a sounding board for all kinds of desires from my children. These run the gambit from the ordinary and ...