Why Are We Fighting?
When regulations limit what kind of housing can be built, the result is endless arguments about what people really want.
Urban planning
Saudi Arabia's 'The Line' Violates Human Rights and Common Sense
Inhumane labor practices, worker deaths, and the forced eviction and repression of local residents have characterized the kingdom's efforts to build a miles-long linear skyscraper in the desert.
New Cities Offer a Chance To Rethink How Local Government Works
California would benefit from building more housing and having more experimentation with how public services are delivered.
Megalopolis Is a Mega Mess
Francis Ford Coppola's clumsy passion project is an ambitious misfire.
Urban Living Would Be Better if Big City Governments Were Less Incompetent
Unions and other special interests seem to get what they want before many urban residents get basic services.
Drive-Thrus Are Booming. Why Are Cities Banning Them?
Despite increasing demand, cities across the U.S. are pushing bans on new drive-thru restaurants in the name of reducing traffic and promoting walkability.
California Forever, Forever
The company needs a lot of government permission slips to build its planned new city in the Bay Area. It's now changing the order in which it asks for them.
How Third-World Countries Build Walkable Cities Without Central Planning
Jakarta, Indonesia, shows why you don't need central planners to get pedestrian-friendly urban design.
Giving Parking Garages New Life
Blame local government parking minimums for the overabundance of parking in the U.S.
The Town Without Zoning
Can Caroline, New York, resist the imposition of its first-ever zoning code?
Atlanta Plans To Blow $230 Million on 2-Mile Extension of Useless Streetcar
That's more than $21,000 per foot. And the tab doesn't include operating costs, which taxpayers will also heavily subsidize.
Blame Regulations, Not Foreign Buyers, for High Housing Costs
Restricting foreign real estate ownership has something for both sides—conservatives don't like foreigners, and progressives don't like capital.
The Zoning Theory of Everything
Land use policies explain the battles over everything from the Great Recession to abortion to Donald Trump.
How a Public Housing Project Became an Unplanned Neighborhood
A favela in southern Brazil shows the upside of an "invasive" urban form—and offers lessons for U.S. housing policy.
Biden's Housing Equity Plan Is More Likely To Waste Resources Than Curtail Zoning
Plus: How credit card companies became the porn police, the failure of the FDA's ban on flavored vaping products, and more...
The International Idiocy of the 15-Minute City
Planners and politicians from Saudi Arabia to Scotland want to transform interconnected cities into isolated "urban villages" no one ever needs to leave.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul's Housing Plan Avoids Common Mistake of Other YIMBY Reforms
The governor would let developers route around local zoning codes and get housing projects approved directly by state officials.
Is There a Future for the City of Tomorrow?
The consequences of our obsession with urban dystopias and utopias
What Is a Family? Ask a Zoning Official.
Big cities like New York, Baltimore, and others use strict definitions of family to restrict housing.
Christopher Alexander's Utopian Blueprint
There is telling people how to live, and there is maximizing people's ability to live the lives they want.
Saudi Prince's Plan for 'Walkable' City of Single-File Buildings Could Be Two Miles-Long Skyscrapers Instead
The idea is exactly as dumb as it sounds.
People Are Fleeing California Cities, Despite Pols' Push for 'Urbanism'
San Francisco lost a whopping 6.7 percent of its population during the COVID-19 pandemic, the second-largest percentage drop after New York.
Michael Shellenberger: How Progressives Ruined American Cities
The San Fransicko author on fighting homelessness and mental illnesses without shredding civil liberties.
L.A. Finally Lets People Eat In Parking Lots
Los Angeles temporarily eased parking requirements during the pandemic, offering a glimpse of how much a less restrictive zoning code improves urban life.
Townscaper
A new type of city-building game which will make you feel like you've been administered a digital Valium
London NIMBYs and YIMBYs Unite To Build More Housing
Could allowing blocks to upzone themselves end the most intractable feud in urban development?
Tech Companies Could Form Their Own Governments Under a New Nevada Proposal
Plus: Replacing cops with health care workers saves lives, tech policy advice for President Biden, and more...
Can't Afford Your Rent? Blame Herbert Hoover.
The feds pushed cities to implement zoning restrictions. High prices and social inequality were the inevitable results.
'Jane Jacobs Goals Through Robert Moses Tactics'
Community planners don't have all the answers.
Californians Are Now Paying Higher Gas Taxes. Cities Are Responding by Reducing Lanes for Cars.
After state lawmakers boosted the gas tax with a promise to improve California streets, some cities are upsetting drivers by spending millions on so-called 'road diet' projects that reduce the number of lanes for motor vehicles.
Seattle Doesn't Want You To Have A Big House
Proposed legislation aims to crack down on "McMansions."
New Orleans Nixes Plan for Strict Cap on French Quarter Strip Clubs
"There is nothing inherent" to strip clubs "that causes crime," say city planners.
The Nanny State vs. The Nanny Goat
Peak goat is finally achieved as goat yoga appears in a taxpayer-subsidized, goat-themed baseball stadium.
The Media Keep Saying Houston's Development Caused It to Flood
An engineer explains why that's wrong.
How Jane Jacobs Challenged the Centralized Urban Planning Groupthink
The death and life of a great American urbanist
