In his last two urbanism-related posts, Matthew Yglesias makes great points only to dissolve them in a vat of unrelated statements posed as conclusions. His logical inconsistency seems to invalidate his otherwise pretty good blogging on urbanism.A couple days ago, Matthew blogged about … [Read more...]
How Pricing Tolls Right Eliminates Congestion
Chris Bradford over at Austin Contrarian has been making some solid points in favor of congestion pricing. (here, here, here and here) Chris’s core argument in favor of congestion tolling is that: congestion pricing does more than relieve congestion. Congestion pricing tells us when a road needs … [Read more...]
The Nation’s mass transit hypocrisy
by Stephen SmithI was heartened to see an article about the need for mass transit in the pages of The Nation, though I was severely disappointed by the magazine's own hypocrisy and historical blindness. The article is in all ways a standard left-liberal screed against the car and for mass … [Read more...]
Uncomfortable truths about the progressive legacy
by Stephen SmithYesterday I was listening to the pre-inaugural concert at the Lincoln Memorial on the radio, and one of the speakers said something that struck me as emblematic of the challenges that Barack Obama faces, though I doubt she realized the ironic significance. She was praising … [Read more...]
Urban[ism] Legend: Positive NPV Infrastructure
As Washington debates how many hundreds-of-billions of the nearly trillion-dollar stimulus will go towards infrastructure or to other spending/tax cut schemes, pundits claim that spending billions on "shovel ready" public works projects can effectively create jobs that will lead to recovery. As … [Read more...]
Cul-de-sacs – Privatize ’em
Daniel Nairn at Discovering Urbanism brings up a great point about cul-de-sacs. Are they public goods, or truly unnecessary "socialism in its most extreme form"?Take the standard cul-de-sac that serves a handful of households. The purpose of this design is to exclude the general public from … [Read more...]
Another On “Conservatives” and Urbanism
While I sympathize with the theme and agree with regards to roadway spending and "conservative" hypocrisy, a recent article in the progressive The American Prospect takes a narrow-minded view of politics and urbanism, while throwing around broad generalizations about evolution and global warming to … [Read more...]
Bike Sharing
My Other Bike is a Public Transportation System by Greg Beato at Reason.com:A bike delivers a strong sense of autonomy, too—stronger even than a car in many ways. It doesn't, for example, require a license, registration, insurance. You aren't beholden to routes or schedules. You go where you … [Read more...]