Urbanist and YIMBY Twitter had a field day dunking on Nathan J. Robinson, whose essay in his publication Current Affairs (yesterday's tagline: "the one thing left that isn't disappointing") called for building new cities in California.The essay was a typical of the "anti-anti-NIMBY" genre: he … [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...]
Exporting (sub)urbanism: Kuala Lumpur and the communist world
by Stephen SmithAdam Martin at William Easterly's development blog Aid Watch has a post up warning about the tendency among developing nations to adopt Western styles wholesale, even if such styles are not even efficient in their countries of origin. He posits this as a sort of developmental … [Read more...]