Anthony Ling, an excellent Brazilian blogger who also happens to be an avowed market urbanism, gives us an interesting look at the politics and economics of low-income housing in Brazil:In Brazil there is a vast regulation defining what are the minimum requirements to have a building approved by … [Read more...]
Aaaand the bike lobby finally descends into self-parody…
Since I've spent the last couple of days pounding the O'Toole/Kotkin/Cox trifecta pretty hard, I figured it was time for a left-wing target: bike lanes. To be honest, I've always been a little annoyed with the bike wing of the urbanist lobby, but it was this article in Streetsblog, "How Ad Dollars … [Read more...]
Is O’Toole right that California is too dense to matter?
Remember my response yesterday to Randal O'Toole's Cato article on parking, when I said that I could easily write a three-part series? Not a joke! (Though I might spare you and leave the trilogy unfinished. Maybe.)Today, I'd like to take on O'Toole's comments on California, which he argues is … [Read more...]
Has Wendell Cox ever heard of India’s license raj?
Wendell Cox, in his ongoing crusade to prove that everyone hates cities, writes about the suburbanization of Mumbai at New Geography. After reviewing all the statistics, he concludes: Mumbai: Penultimate Density, Yet Representative: The core urban area (area of continuous urban development) of … [Read more...]
Links
1. Maps of sprawl and gentrification in Detroit, St. Louis, Chicago, and Boston. At first the picture looks bleak for cities, but Jesus – even downtown Detroit is growing! (More here.)2. A real, live Texan (just kidding – he lives in Austin) replies to O'Toole on parking.3. Why aren't (more) … [Read more...]
From the comments: Parking minimums in Houston
In a comment to yesterday's post on land use in Texas, baklazkhan notes that in spite of the libertarian myth of Houston as a completely (or even relatively) laissez-faire city with regards to land use, it actually has pretty strict parking minimums: Additionally, it's interesting to compare the … [Read more...]
A far-too-long rebuttal of Randal O’Toole on parking
Donald Shoup and Randal O'Toole – they just can't get enough of each other! Donald Shoup, you may recall, is the granddaddy of free market parking policy, and Randal O'Toole is the self-styled Antiplanner. Though they both claim to be libertarians, they seem to have some pretty fundamental … [Read more...]
Joel Kotkin doesn’t know what a “garden city” is, but he knows he loves it
Longtime Market Urbanism readers will know that we're not huge fans of Joel Kotkin. But his most recent article on megacities (spoiler: the "triumphalism" surrounding them "frankly disturbs me") sets a new low for sheer factual inaccuracy. I'm speaking specifically of his policy prescription, which … [Read more...]