Monthly Archives: July 2010

If you don’t normally read the comment section, I encourage you to click through to yesterday’s post about “clean slate” thinking. I particularly want to endorse this perspective from Jed Harris: I think it turns on on whether one gives … Continue reading →

A fantastic column by Gene Healy about our bloated new national security state: The system vomits up some “50,000 intelligence reports each year — a volume so large that many are routinely ignored.” Details about December’s “underwear bomber” vanished amid … Continue reading →

A few years before her death, in 2000, Jane Jacobs gave a really fascinating interview with Jim Kunstler. It’s a long interview, but it’s packed with interesting ideas from a woman who was still in her intellectual prime well into … Continue reading →

A great comment by reader “Eric”: The same barriers that supposedly keep crime out, are the same ones that concentrate it. At the end of the day, it doesn’t solve the problem. Furthermore (funny how the worm turns), now the … Continue reading →

Last week I argued that driving freeways through the heart of urban neighborhoods can have devastating effects. In case you’re skeptical about that claim, consider the case of McRee Town, a St. Louis neighborhood not far from the Forest Park … Continue reading →

As I mentioned last week, I’ve installed Envolve, the software that provides the Facebook-style chat you should see at the lower-right hand corner of your browser window, on the blog. I’ll be around this evening, 9-10 PM Eastern (6-7 PM … Continue reading →

A number of bloggers have gotten into a debate about the merits of tenure. I think the discussion has been hampered by a misunderstanding of what universities do and why tenure is important. Yes, tenure sometimes protects professors who hold … Continue reading →

One of the things I find really interesting about urban planning issues is that each city has its own unique story. I’ve mostly drawn my examples from Washington DC, St. Louis, Philadelphia, and New York because those are the cities … Continue reading →

This week a number of my favorite liberal bloggers are tweeting and blogging from Netroots Nation, the annual conference for wired liberal activists. And as far as I can tell, there are no libertarians at the event. Certainly there don’t … Continue reading →

Jane Jacobs wrote Great American Cities in 1961, a time when elite opinion was almost uniformly hostile to the urban lifestyle. American policymakers at all levels of government pushed policies that undermined urban neighborhoods and pushed people into the suburbs. … Continue reading →