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.

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1. China’s high-speed rail scandal. So much for Obama’s State of the Union shout-out.

2. Boston, Philadelphia, and DC are all moving towards parking reform – both of minimum off-street requirements (unfortunately to be replaced with maximums in most cases) and of underpriced curb parking – but NYC’s the laggard. Like I noted a few weeks ago, this could be sabotaging its recent upzonings.

3. One Democratic Assemblyman wants to hamstring the NYC subway with yet another ridiculously overbearing safety rule – literally forcing trains to come to a complete halt right before entering a station – adding significant time to existing commutes.

4. NYC’s FRESH initiative gives money to a politically-connected supermarket for a parking lot. Wait, isn’t car-owning food desert victim an oxymoron?

5. Downtown San Jose’s Diridon station – the most transit-accessible place in San Jose – is getting $10 billion worth of new rail. Zoning consultants were paid for a year, and came up with the following recommendation: “no proposed changes to current code.” Got that? $10 billion in rail investment in one of the most progressive places in America and there will be no new TOD allowed.

  • One Democratic Assemblyman wants to hamstring the NYC subway with yet another ridiculously overbearing safety rule – literally forcing trains to come to a complete halt right before entering a station – adding significant time to existing commutes.

    I am sometimes surprised that in the name of “safety” politicians haven’t forced OSHA type regulations on subway platforms. I’m picturing railings and locked gates along the edge of the platforms to prevent people from falling over the edge. (I think of these things with a toddler who loves to run on the platforms and scares the crap out of everyone who watches)

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  • Rhywun

    1. I knew it was “too good to be true”.

    3. That’s our NYC council… scared to death to tackle any meaningful problems affecting our city, and therefore so bored they come up with stuff like this to pad out their resumes come next election time.

  • Alon Levy

    It’s not a bad thing to mandate platform screen doors, in the long run. The cost of those is fairly small, and underground they pay for themselves in reduced air cooling costs. The reason it’s not a bad thing is precisely that it doesn’t cripple transit operations, unlike forcing trains to come to a complete halt before entering each station.

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