Urban Issues

A large and ever-expanding body of research demonstrates what anyone with a reasonable functional frontal cortex knows instinctively: Human beings benefit in myriad ways – physically, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually – from spending time in nature.  read more »

Revolution and disruption rarely stem from the poor and destitute, but from what Alexis de Tocqueville described as “a revolution of rising expectations”.  read more »

“A great city is not to be confounded with a populous one.” — Aristotle

American cities face an existential choice. They can continue down their current path – adopting policies that work against the interests of local residents – or develop new approaches to make urban life work for the broad majority.  read more »

The Washington Post has discovered that there are “inefficiencies” in the nation’s affordable housing programs, including its largest one, low-income housing tax credits.  read more »

Los Angeles is reeling once again from urban disturbances, as it did in 1965, 1992 and 2020. After each outbreak the city is widely seen as a hopeless disaster  read more »

One of the more curious, not to mention consequential, aspects of modern liberalism is its reliance on assumptions that collapse under even rudimentary scrutiny. For example, the liberal “YIMBY” movement  read more »

Los Angeles is burning again, and it is not the Olympic flame. After riots in 1965, 1992 and 2020, Angelenos are bearing witness once more to a rash of violent unrest.  read more »

Here’s something I think about a lot. I believe in that Shakespearean phrase “what’s past is prologue”, meaning that past events serve as a good indicator of what the future may hold.  read more »

The most recent Los Angeles riots reflect, among other things, the response of immigrant activists to President Trump’s crackdown, and the latest resurgence of organized left-wing activism, which had been relatively quiet in the early months of the new administration. A less widely remarked factor, however, is the emerging and complex nature of class in contemporary America.  read more »

Los Angeles has a long, combustible history — and it’s flaring up again. The current unrest, driven in part by political grievances  read more »