Market Urbanism

Affordable housing mandates - "inclusionary zoning" - have been a popular way for cities to deal with high housing costs. But Stephen Smith says there are real market costs, and while the empirical work is in its infancy, it doesn't look promising.

Local property taxes are often levied disproportionately on multifamily developers, resulting in higher taxes for apartment-dwellers, says Stephen Smith.

Preservation laws often ban additions to designated buildings, which can be counterproductive, says Stephen Smith, who argues that incremental add-ons can protect buildings from future redevelopment driven by market forces.

Stephen Smith critiques the new mayor's strategies for fighting congestion in the Russian city.

Stephen Smith questions the reasoning behind this increasingly popular breed of capital project, arguing the real benefits of connectors rarely justify their hefty price tags.

New Jersey wants billions in federal money for its ARC project, but NJ Transit's commuter rail service is too often just a subsidy to the rich and an excuse not to develop North Jersey, says Stephen Smith.

The NYT is reporting that New Jersey is running out of developable land, but with the recent ARC decision, the legacy of the Mount Laurel doctrine, and decades of highway-based suburbanizing policies, is New Jersey actually ready for density?

It's an article of faith among many that GM, Firestone, and Standard Oil destroyed the streetcar networks of the early 20th century. Stephen Smith suggests that Progressive Era and New Deal planners and politicians should shoulder more of the blame.

Small, private bus-like jitneys have taken off in cities across North Jersey, operating more frequently and at lower cost than NJ Transit. Their reckless driving and skirting of regulations, however, present problems for transit planners.

When the link between transit operators and real estate developers was severed in the early 20th century, transit became both unprofitable and unresponsive to market demand, and land value-lowering MTA cuts are just one example, says Stephen Smith.

Developing countries have begun importing Western-style pro-sprawl urban planning policies, often to their detriment. Kuala Lumpur and cities across the communist world are examined.

Urbanists have rightfully been wary of libertarianism in the past, says Stephen Smith, but a new crop of Jane Jacobs-loving libertarians could change that perception.

Recent MTA budget cuts have forced New York City to axe a few of its bus routes, but they've had the effect of spurring a new wave of private bus initiatives.

Stephen Smith at Market Urbanism looks at the truth behind the cliché, and finds that while Houston does not have Euclidean zoning, it does have more unconventional means of controlling land use beyond the invisible hand of the free market.