Market Urbanism

Liberalizing cities | From the bottom up

“Market Urbanism” refers to the synthesis of classical liberal economics and ethics (market), with an appreciation of the urban way of life and its benefits to society (urbanism). We advocate for the emergence of bottom up solutions to urban issues, as opposed to ones imposed from the top down.

Happy 250th post!

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…okay, so it’s not really the 250th post – that passed a few weeks ago, uneventfully. But we did recently pass 100,000 total page views (at least, so says Sitemeter…WordPress seems to think it’s more), so I thought it would be a good time to introduce myself and maybe ask you guys for a favor.

First of all, my name is Stephen Smith (as you can now see above), and while this is Adam’s blog that he’s had for a few years now, I’ve been putting up most of the posts for the last few months. (I did post occasionally before August, but that’s when I really started ramping up the postings.) I graduated last spring from Georgetown undergrad, with an entirely unrelated and highly regrettable major that might have made a little more sense if I actually wanted to become an international trade lawyer, but which alas seems good for little else.  I’m currently biding my time with this (entirely unremunerative) blog until I can find a job in journalism or thinktankdom somewhere on the East Coast (or in any field, any place, really…).  So, if you have any leads on that, send me an e-mail at smithsj[at]gmail…you figure out the rest. Paid or unpaid, East Coast or East Africa (I can speak Romanian, French, German, and Spanish, in descending order of fluency…so maybe West Africa would be better) – I can’t promise you that I’ll take it, but I’ll at least consider it!

Anyway, I also thought I’d take the time to ask you guys if you had any feedback on the blog. Anything you like in particular that you want more of, or that you didn’t like and want less of? Anything that I haven’t written about that you think I should? What field do you work in – is it related to urbanism, or are you just curious?  Did you come to Market Urbanism originally interested in urbanism, or libertarianism, or both?  Also, people rarely comment on the link lists, but I personally like them on other blogs – should I keep doing them, or not?

I love reading everyone’s comments so I encourage people to leave them if you don’t already, and leave more if you already do. And please, especially if you’re not a frequent commenter – leave one on this post! Positive or negative, anonymous or signed, I don’t care – just leave one! (…too desperate?)

  • Asdgdfga

    I’m an urbanist and not a libertarian, so this blog has been interesting for me. Politically speaking I’m a basic progressive/left-winger, but with a bit of a libertarian streak, and this blog has definitely activated that libertarian streak.

    This blog has helped me to use libertarian arguments against right-wingers who profess to love small government. Doing that is very satisfying.

    I’ve been interested in concepts of emergence for a while now, without ever connecting those concepts to libertarian politics, or conciously connecting them to the last chapter of “Death and Life of Great American Cities”. I do now.

    The idea of speedy feedback in a self-correcting system as applied to urban planning is pretty interesting, and seems a lot more fruitful than the current system of best guesses by top-down authoritarian planners, who don’t have a great record of success. Ultimately though we need some level of top-down structuring of the parameters of that system (or the rules of the game if you prefer), and that’s where Jane Jacobs stressed intimate local knowledge and pragmatism rather than adherence to any political ideology.

    Thanks on a great blog, even if I don’t completely share the political ideology.

  • I’d also like to note that in only a few month since Stephen started posting often, subscribers have nearly tripled, pageloads doubled, and twitter followers (@marketurbanism) went through the roof!

    Great job Stephen!

    Also, I do have plenty of ideas for posts of my own, but just need to make the time to jot it all down.

    Adam

  • Andy Kuziemko

    I’m glad to see readership is increasing. Keep up the good work.

  • I don’t remember how I first came across the blog. I did a series of posts at my blog about similar topics this summer and probably came across your blog as a result. More recently I’ve gotten busy and haven’t paid as much attention to this space, but I’ve been glad to see you guys plugging away.

    I assume you’ve looked in the usual libertarian places? Like here and here? I don’t know of any openings off hand, but the universe of libertarian-leaning non-profits is pretty big, and entry-level positions open up with some regularity. One other option you might want to consider is writing for AFF’s Doublethink. They don’t pay (last I heard), but they’re fairly widely read in younger right-of-center DC circles; writing for them can yield benefits both in terms of writing practice and networking. I wrote for them for ~18 months early in my own writing career.

    Good luck!

  • Followed a link from the reason blog comments about a month ago and have been following since. Not a construction professional, just find this a fascinating topic. I lean libertarian and green, but it usually feels pretty lonely.

  • Huh, I left a comment with some links and Disqus ate it.

  • The blog is great! keep rocking !

    http://www.urbandemographics.blogspot.com

  • Alear

    I’ll be moving from suburban Columbus to downtown in a month, but other than that I’m new to this whole topic. I suspect I’ll be learning, and in the process have bookmarked you. I can’t remember if I was linked here by Marginal Revolution or Cafe Hayek. Politically, I lean more Republican than libertarian.
    Stay well.

  • Shannon

    I’m a bleeding-heart liberal with an economics degree, so your coverage of regulations that contribute to sprawl, overpriced rental housing, etc. are particularly interesting to me. I don’t have a problem with government intervention to fix market failures, but you do a great job covering instances in which it’s the government intervention that causes the market failure in today’s housing and transportation sectors. Keep up the good work.

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