Anarchitecture

Joe was interviewed on the "Sounds Like Liberty" podcast about:

• The music of Anarchitecture Podcast

Check out our band "Diametric" at diametricband.com, where you can stream our music and find links to spotify, itunes, and several other platforms.

Use hashtag #ana026 to reference this episode in a tweet, post, or comment

View full show notes at http://anarchitecturepodcast.com/ana026.

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• Intro to Sounds Like Liberty - Nicky P and Lizzie

• "Woulda Coulda Shoulda" - the #nocoiner anthem

• Welcome to Sounds Like Liberty

• What is Anarchitecture?

• We've written and recorded a song for one episode of our podcast

• Good songwriting, regardless of genre

• Late to the Game album - We're getting the band back together!

• Moon Boot Lover

• I should cut back on podcasts

• In high school, 2 friends died in a car accident

• God Street Wine - $1.99 Romances

• Vola - Applause of a Distant Crowd

• Anarchitecture

• Late to the Game (Live)

• Snipe

• Sounds Like Liberty

• Episode 54 (This original episode)

• Spotify

• Phish

• ana007: Citizen of Nowhere | Part 2: Joe's Immigration Ordeal

Email us: [email protected]

Website: http://www.anarchitecturepodcast.com/

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/anarchitecture/id1091252412

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/anarchitecturepodcast

We interview Titus Gebel, the Founder, President and CEO of Free Private Cities Inc.

Free Private Cities is working towards building new, greenfield cities using a model of individual bilateral contracts between each citizen and the city owner/operator.

In his book, "Free Private Cities: Making Governments Compete for You," Titus describes why and how Free Private Cities should be developed.

Use hashtag #ana025 to reference this episode in a tweet, post, or comment

View full show notes at http://anarchitecturepodcast.com/ana025.

• The Free Private Cities Concept

• Individual contracts

• Patrik Schumacher - Market Based Urban Order

• Competing service provider models

• What is a Free Private City (FPC)?

• A concept to make governments compete for you

• Is a weak or friendly sponsor government a geographical feature?

• climate

• Spread the idea

• More than 4,000 Special Economic Zones (SEZ's) and Special Administrative Regions (SAR's) already exist

• Concept is based on 100% voluntary participation

• Referendum to join city

• Everything is conceivable

• Start small, organic growth

• Height and noise restrictions alone can determine uses

• Disneyland as a SEZ

• Noise threshold and other development rights can be sold

• This is possible for certain services

• "Social contract" is a contract between each individual and every other individual

• Joe's house was broken into

• Only role of the police was an official report for the insurance claim

• Third party arbitration, special courts

• It's not so important who owns the city operator, as long as the contracts are enforced

• Kicking someone out of a city means preventing them from using public space.

• Operator makes citizen whole, criminal owes the operator compensation

• Subscribe to FPC newsletter for updates

• Free Private Cities Website

• The Book: Free Private Cities: Making Governments Compete for You by Titus Gebel
  

• Listen to the Audiobook for free at Mises.org

• Free Market Urban Order (YouTube)

• Patrik Schumacher Series

• ana011: Patrik Schumacher (3 of 4) | The Interview

Email us: [email protected]

Website: http://www.anarchitecturepodcast.com/

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/anarchitecture/id1091252412

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/anarchitecturepodcast

We expand on some of the more challenging issues raised during our interview with Chuck Marohn of Strong Towns in episode #ana023.

Use hashtag #ana024 to reference this episode in a tweet, post, or comment

View full show notes at anarchitecturepodcast.com/ana024.

"The thing that we're concerned about is the coercion, not the government per se."

• Strong Towns - more pragmatic, less ideological

• "You don't need to be open-minded when you have all the answers"

• Minarchism - The belief that the government is inherently, throughly, and incorrigibly incompetent and corrupt, and that the one issue most important to them can only be addressed competently and justly by the government

• The morality depends on the road ownership structure and agreed obligations of HOA (Home-Owner's Association) members

• HOA's apply the doctrine of private property to a broader area

• Walking out of Memphis

• Leverage the existing government

• It's coercion that concerns us, not government per se

• Less reliance on Wall Street & Washington

• Anti-capitalist opposition to GDP growth targeting

• Bubbles can inflate value per acre

• Leftists who care about the poor shouldn't write off libertarianism

• Strong Towns

• Chuck Marohn / Randall O'Toole Debate and Chuck's response

• A Desire Named Streetcar: How Federal Subsidies Encourage Wasteful Local Transit Systems

• ana023: Strong Towns for Libertarians | Chuck Marohn Interview

• ana003: Ant-architecture | Anarchic Alternatives

Chuck Marohn's "Strong Towns" philosophy has been a huge influence on our thinking. StrongTowns.org has grown from a personal blog into one of the most influential urbanist movements in America, with thousands of members and millions of readers worldwide.

Strong Towns is common sense, yet iconoclastic: Cities and towns need to manage their finances responsibly, and develop their infrastructure accordingly.

While Chuck's prognoses may sound pessimistic, he believes that positive changes must happen at the level of the local community, rather than chasing easy money from Wall Street and Washington. This is an approach that we can get behind.

Chuck's forthcoming book "Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity" is available for pre-order, and will be released on October 1st, 2019.

Use hashtag #ana023 to reference this episode in a tweet, post, or comment

View full show notes and links at http://anarchitecturepodcast.com/ana023

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• Tim met Chuck at an event in Portsmouth NH

• Land is permanent

• 'tain't a street, 'tain't a road

• What is a Strong Town?

• A place that can take care of itself

• Post-WWII development pattern - horizontal expansion

• Fear the Boom and Bust

• "We have categorically rejected the idea of a solution"

• "What two policies can we enact that would build Strong Towns"

• Incentives are all messed up

• Strong Towns has everyone from hardcore socialists to hardcore libertarians

• The price of your home should have factored in the maintenance costs

• Study in Lafayette, LA - how many times is your poop pumped?

• Utilities are local monopolies

• Private Public Partnership

• Memphis annexation to close budget gaps

• Alignment between libertarians and advocates for the poor

• Wealth creation is the proxy for success

• Yes

• Knee-jerk libertarian reaction - no special privileges

• 70,000 words in 6 months

• "Back when I started, it was me writing a blog instead of going to a therapist"

• "Either I'm crazy, or the world's crazy. I was open to either possibility."

• Link on the home page

• Strong Towns

• Newcomers page

• Pre-order Strong Towns, the book

• Strong Towns Podcasts

• Connect with local Strong Towns groups

• Sprawl is Not the Problem

• Joe Minicozzi - Urban3

• ana020: The Power of Place-Based Community | Tim’s Freecoast 2018 Speech

• Mark Thornton's "The Skyscraper Curse" is a great explanation of ABCT and shows the effects of the business cycle on city development

 We expand on some of the AGENDA 21 topics raised in episode #ana021. We expand on Smart Growth, libertarian approaches to preserving nature, and Public-Private Partnerships.

 Use hashtag #ana022 to reference this episode in a tweet, post, or comment

 View full show notes at http://anarchitecturepodcast.com/ana022.

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#ana021 was like drinking from a fire hose. This episode is smooth sippin'.

• Revisiting Smart Growth

• Rosa Koire - Throws out the baby with the bathwater

• American Prairie Reserve (APR)

• The efficiency of a private corporation with the pocketbook and social oversight

• It's not productive to fight Agenda 21

• Strong Towns - "Please, I'm not a Smart Growth Advocate"

• Blog Post

• APR article by Shawn Regan

• Tim's question is at 38:50

We join the Friends Against Government Podcast for a "Conspiracy Court" trial of UN AGENDA 21. From Smart Meters, to Smart Growth, to Smart Cities, to Smart Deer, how afraid should we be?

This episode is Not Suitable for Work, or really for any self-respecting human being.

Use hashtag #ana021 to reference this episode in a tweet, post, or comment

View full show notes at anarchitecturepodcast.com/ana021.

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• The @CarCampIt bump

• Introductions

• The Dan Carlin Release Schedule

• UN AGENDA 21 - the plan to catalog and control every resource by the ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT!!!

• 1991 UN Earth Summit in Rio De Janeiro

1. Communist / Fascist top-down control of resources, land, & people, rationing of resources. Technocracy

• Technocracy

• "Call me Daddy" - Supporting total fascism for the lulz

• The Rockefeller Connection

• Smart cities

• "These people have a red button" and they push it incrementally every day

• Eminent Domain

• DELPHI MIND CONTROL

• Regional Boards

• Rights lost long ago

• Bastardization of Jane Jacobs

• UN Biodiversity Report

• Who cares

• ...or checkpoint?

• Funneling resources into well-connected parties

• Bike Boulevards and Complete Streets in Adelaide

• The Socialist Calculation Problem writ large

• Guilt

• Anarchitecture

• Friends Against Government Podcast

• Twitter

• @FAGCAST

• UN Agenda 21 - pdf

• Search the map for your town

• Gro Harlem Brundtland

• Episode 316 – The Unauthorized Biography of David Rockefeller

• Agenda 21 / 2030 in Utah and the West

• Smart Growth

• ana008: Way Beyond the Roads | The Tom Woods Show Ep. 802 plus Post-game

• Theme From Cheers

Is community compatible with libertarian individualism?

At the Freecoast Festival V in Portsmouth, NH, Tim told the story of how he came to understand the necessity of community in Panama. He discussed:

This episode includes Tim's full speech and a post-game discussion with Tim and Joe.

Use hashtag #ana020 to reference this episode in a tweet, post, or comment. View full show notes at http://anarchitecturepodcast.com/ana020.

Tim's speech from Porcfest 2018 expands on the ideas he presented in his previous speech, and presents a more cohesive framework for addressing issues related to Public Space within libertarian theory. He challenges some libertarian orthodoxy, in particular Hans-Hermann Hoppe's conception of public space as simply an extension of private property.

Also: Helicopters 🚁🚁🚁

Use hashtag #ana019 to reference this episode in a tweet, post, or comment.

View full show notes at https://anarchitecturepodcast.com/ana019.

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Note: YouTube with slideshow coming soon.

PorcFest XV | June 21, 2018

“Property is theft; Property is freedom: these two propositions stand side by side...

From Selected Writings of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, ed. Stewart Edwards, Macmillan 1969. p.133

Public Space: Space that is accessible to non-owners without invitation, with reasonable restrictions

Not always “public property.” Government owned and privately owned

Many types of public space - Open Space, Buildings, Pathways

Degrees of access with permissions

Restrictions on entry and occupancy – Fees, hours, use, behavior

Many private facilities have public space components (i.e. Lobbies)

Expectation of entry (if not occupancy) on most properties

Freedom of Movement

Access - enter and exit, with reasonable restrictions (fees for wear and tear, hours of use, etc.)

Occupancy

Immigration

Freedom of Association

Meet with others

Assembly

Protest

Special Events - Block party, parade, bike race

Freedom of Exchange

Farmers’ Market

Boot Sale

Food Trucks

Sidewalk Entrepreneurship

Peer to peer exchange

Satoshi Squares

Freedom to Bear Arms / Self-defense

Transport weapons to private property

Restrictions on self-defense in public spaces may expose the owners of public space to liability for not protecting

occupants

Four Tiers of Public Space

Private Space – Invitation only / eviction rights.

Maximum freedom for owner, minimal freedoms for public.

Permissive Public Space – Public access and uses permitted by owner. Revocable defined freedoms.

Protected Public Space – Public access and uses protected by easement, legal rights, etc. Irrevocable defined freedoms.

Unowned Public Space – State of nature. Unlimited public access and uses. Maximum freedom for public, potential for conflict.

We should fight for a free society in which public space exists.

How do we divest public space from government ownership and control while preserving the freedom of public space?

Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “Of Private, Common, and Public Property and the Rationale for Total Privatization,” Libertarian Papers 3, 1 (2011)

Property Ownership as Conflict Avoidance (paraphrased)

Physical conflicts over scarce goods can be avoided if every good is exclusively controlled by some specified individual or group.

To avoid all physical conflict from the beginning of mankind, all property must go back through a chain of conflict-free property title transfers to acts of original appropriation (homesteading).

Hoppe’s Village

Unowned / Unused Land (State of Nature)

Unowned Land In Use

Homesteaded Private Property

Homesteaded Private Neighborhood

Public Space Conflict (Scarcity)

Solution 1 - Government-Owned “Public” Property

Villagers form a government to own and manage the street.

The Government:

Restricts access by villagers and foreigners

Sets rules and regulations

Controls commercial activity and development on street

Requires payment - user fees or taxes

Does not allow exit from ownership

Gains control over abutting private property (encirclement)

Hoppe’s Village – Government-Owned “Public” Property

Solution 2 – Homesteaded Private Property

Individual or group “homesteads” the road by making repairs, granting them exclusive ownership

The Owner:

Restricts access by villagers and foreigners

Sets rules and regulations

Controls commercial activity and development on street

Requires payment - user fees or taxes subscription

Does not allow exit from joining ownership

Gains control over abutting private property (encirclement)

Hoppe’s Village – Homesteaded Private Property

Solution 2.1 – Homesteaded Private Property with Easement

Individual or group “homesteads” the road by making repairs, granting them exclusive ownership. Villagers are granted a right-of way easement.

The Owner:

Restricts access by villagers and foreigners

Sets rules and regulations

Controls commercial activity and development on street

Requires payment by foreigners only - user fees or taxes subscription

Does not allow exit from joining ownership

Gains control over Restricts foreigners’ access to abutting private property (encirclement) (border control)

Hoppe’s Village – Homesteaded Private Property / Easement

Hoppe’s Easement Problem:

“For, by definition, as the first appropriator he cannot have run into any conflict with anyone in appropriating the good in question, as everyone else appeared on the scene only later.”

Easement means:

First appropriator did run into conflict, with previous users

Use alone creates property rights, not just Lockean labor (improvements)

Property rights can be granted to an unorganized collective (public), not just individual or organized group entity

Property rights are divisible and can be allocated, not just exclusive control.

Modes of Property Ownership

(borrowed from Cynefin project management theory)

Disorder - Unowned land

Simple Ownership – Property rights allocated to one defined individual or group

Complicated Ownership – Property rights allocated among multiple defined individuals or groups

Complex Ownership – Property rights allocated among multiple defined and undefined individuals or groups (i.e. the public)

Chaotic Ownership - Unpredictable allocation of property rights among multiple defined and undefined individuals or groups

Hoppe’s Village – Homesteaded Private Property

Hoppe’s Village – Homesteaded Private Property / Easement

Hoppe’s Village – Protected Public Space

“In a covenant concluded among proprietor and community tenants for the purpose of protecting their private property,

Democracy - The God That Failed: The Economics and Politics of Monarchy, Democracy, and Natural Order (Transaction: 2001) p. 218

A covenant among proprietor and community tenants

What people get wrong about Hoppe

“Physical Removal” means eviction from private property (Tier 1 Private Space) by its owner. That’s it. No helicopters, folks.

Hoppe’s restrictions on speech are consented to within the covenant community and do not apply outside that community.

What Hoppe gets right:

In a covenant community, property owners can voluntarily agree to mutually restrict their freedoms, including speech about communism.

Covenant violators could be evicted from the community, if allowed by the covenant terms.

This is not aggression. The violator consented to removal.

What Hoppe gets wrong:

"Shh.. The libertarians are listening..."

Covenant community restrictions only apply to property owners

“Libertarian” covenant communities would not choose to restrict speech, movement, etc. even if such covenants were possible, which they aren’t

Collectivized covenant communities are not “a libertarian social order.” They are communist.

How do covenant communities make decisions? Democracy!

No government-run nation, state, or village is a voluntary covenant community

Private ownership of public space does not necessarily grant the owner right to admit or exclude others.

In a libertarian society, there should be a network of protected public spaces from which you cannot be physically removed.

Why Divest Government Property?

Basis for the state’s power and perceived legitimacy

Private landownership maximizes freedom for landowner and minimizes conflict among permitted users

Protected Public Space can maximize freedom for the public and minimize conflict through negotiated easements / rules

Less justification for eminent domain

Municipal police are not needed to secure private property

Windfall capital endowment for the poor (and everyone else)

Land Available for Homesteading (See table image below)

Methods of Divestiture (See comparison table image below)

To the Taxpayers (Hoppe)

To the Workers

To the Users

To the Abutters

To the Citizens

To the Creditors

To the Victims of History (Restitution)

To the Highest Bidder (Auction)

Lottery

Vouchers

Seizure in revolution

A form of non-governmental public ownership

Anyone can establish an ownership share at no cost

Anyone can relinquish an ownership share

Owners choose board members / management

Owners have a stake in decision making

Owners receive benefits of ownership (profit)

Owners may be responsible for costs

Owners establish access rights and rules

Creating an Opt-in Trust

Someone creates a Declaration of Trust (legal document)

Defines criteria and process for opting-in

Defines rights and responsibilities of owners and users

Individuals opt-in to claim ownership shares

New owners further evolve Trust policies

Divesting Government Property to an Opt-in Trust

Anarchitecture Podcast convinces governments to divest property

Various Opt-in Trusts compete to persuade government to divest to them

Multiple Opt-in Trusts may merge to be more viable

Government transitions ownership of a specific property to a Trust

Sources of Revenue

Owner Fees (may be limited by Trust)

User Fees (may be limited by easements)

Abutter Impact Fees (curb cuts, utility work)

Utility Fees (purchase easements, work permit fees)

Land-Leases (mining, logging, operators, food trucks, events)

Advertising (billboards, signboards, naming rights)

Donations

Raising Capital For Improvements

Owner Fees (may be limited by Trust)

Investment Shares – Separate from Opt-In Shares. Proportional to value of improvements

Bonds – May be collateralized by improvements (not land value)

Asset Sales – Limited by Trust and easements.

Maintenance Costs

Paid by Trust

Wear and tear

Security

Insurance

Claim Damages

Management / Administrative

Profits

Savings for future improvements

Discounts to users

Dividends to Opt-In Shares. Each additional share dilutes previous shares.

Dividends to Investment Shares. Proportional to value of improvements.

Public space is where freedom happens

4 Tiers – Private, Permissive, Protected, Unowned

Modes of Ownership – Disorder, Simple, Complicated, Complex, Chaotic

A libertarian society should have a network of protected public spaces connecting sovereign private properties

Government property should be divested to public forms of ownership with protections for established freedoms

Opt-In Trusts may be the best method of divestiture

Lancaster or Lebanon?

Tim was offered a helicopter ride

Helicopter memes - taken too seriously?

Covenant Communities

Red Meat and Sacred Cows

Protected Public Space vs. Hoppean border controls

A more nuanced view - Public Space as a separate category of analysis

"Governing the Commons" - Elinor Ostrom

Separable rights to uses of public space

Aggression defined as "Interference with established use"

Homesteading uses vs. homesteading land

Private public spaces could still exist (e.g. within private gated communities)

Covenant Communities are overrated

Hoppeville is a communist arrangement. That's why the houses were red.

Sovereign private property connected by a network of public space

More on Opt-in Trusts

Two objections

Objection 1: Tragedy of the Commons

Would a market process emerge to convert unsuccessful spaces to other uses?

Road network maintained as a whole - big roads subsidize smaller feeder roads

Objection 2: A trust could become a state

Limited scope of Opt-in Trusts

Opt-in implies Opt-out

How does an Opt-in Trust enforce user fees?

Common law adjudication

Established penalties could inform appropriate user fees

Fees are for service provided, not access per se

Right of eviction for chronic deadbeats

Get these ideas into the literature

Bonus! The sounds of Porcfest (Raw Audio)

Hans-Hermann Hoppe:

“Of Private, Common, and Public Property and the Rationale for Total Privatization,” Libertarian Papers 3, 1 (2011). ONLINE AT: libertarianpapers.org.

Democracy - The God That Failed

The Case for Free Trade and Restricted Immigration

Tragedy of the Commons by Garret Hardin

Governing the Commons (PDF) by Elinor Ostrom

Our previous discussions:

ana013: Private Ownership of Public Space | Part 1: Tim’s Porcfest Speech

ana014: Private Ownership of Public Space | Part 2: Exploring Opt-In Trusts

Images from Tim's slideshow are included in the show notes at https://anarchitecturepodcast.com/ana019.

On January 15th, 2018, Startup Cities hosted a discussion panel featuring Adam Hengels, founder of Market Urbanism, and Patrik Schumacher, Principal of Zaha Hadid Architects. Hosted by Peter Ryan, Founder of Startup Cities.

This episode features the full audio recording of this event, plus Anarchitecture Podcast's pre-game and post-game discussion.

Use hashtag #ana018 to reference this episode in a tweet, post, or comment

View full show notes at http://anarchitecturepodcast.com/ana018.

Introduction to the event and participants

We're the color commentary; Market Urbanism is the play-by-play

A chance to connect with Market Urbanism, and reconnect with Patrik Schumacher

Tim's impressions of the event

Summary of topics covered

Audio quality - remember that our policy is to blame the listener for any and all audio quality issues. You're just not listening hard enough.

YouTube slideshow of notes summarizing the discussion: https://youtu.be/ujq1WGri4wA

Peter Ryan

Mission of Startup Cities: Bring investors and entrepreneurs from startup community to urban planning, real estate development, and architecture communities

Startup Cities sponsors

40% of buildings in Manhattan could not be built today with current zoning requirements

Patrik Schumacher

Biography

Was a communist as a student

Became more mainstream

Re-radicalized in libertarian thought and Austrian economics after 2008 financial crisis

Adam Hengels

Studied Architecture in college, then switched to Structural Engineering

Graduate school at MIT for real estate development, focusing on mega-projects

Worked for a developer on large projects (Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn, now Pacific Park)

Long-standing interest in urbanism

Saw what happened behind the scenes between government and developer (subsidies, eminent domain)

Also saw negative impacts of NIMBY groups

Adam Hengels

Sprawl is not a free-market phenomenon, it is government-created

Steven Smith and others started writing for Market Urbanism

Market Urbanism is a movement

Planning intelligentsia has started to come along. They admit that zoning is a problem.

Next step is closing the gap between the intelligentsia and the mainstream

Patrik Schumacher

Left-liberal consensus runs deep among intelligentsia

Peter Ryan

Did you (Patrik) perceive these ideas before 2008?

Patrik Schumacher

Was exploring other ideas about societal organization

Fordism - 20th century - Simpler industrial base and societal organization - more compatible with modernism

Post-fordism - More complex economic and societal organization - more urban concentration

Managed, state-run economy and development - a bad but viable idea in the 1950's, a suicidal idea today

Peter Ryan

Increased urbanism isn't a decision people are going to make, it is going to happen.

What role does market urbanism play in this inevitable development?

Adam Hengels

The future is a world of agglomeration.

People want to be around other people

The great ideas of the future are going to happen in cities

Patrik Schumacher

Cities create the conditions under which productivity can soar and flourish

People are willing to give up 80% of their salary to be in the city center and participate in the city network

Living in the city is a socio-economic necessity, but urban life is also desirable

The city is a prosperity engine

Zoning and standards (i.e. housing) prevent people from making life choices. One-size fits all restrictions.

These regulations prevent affordablility. Talking about this topic is viciously toxic

Adam Hengels

There are also environmental consequences of planning regulations.

San Francisco is one of the most environmentally friendly places in the world to live.

The more we prevent people from living in San Francisco, the worse for the environment.

Peter Ryan

How do planning regulations distort what the architect does?

Patrik Schumacher

Regulations stifle innovation and creativity for architects and developers

Everything is predetermined

Entrepreneurs compete only on the basis of negotiating with authorities, rent-seeking

Basically there’s no market in real estate. That’s why it doesn’t function

These (negotiations with authorities) are invitations for corruption 

Adam Hengels

Architects don't design buildings in NYC, zoning does.

90% of what you do is just compliance.

"Planners" isn't the right word. They're not planning, they're reacting.

Petty bureaucrats

Patrik Schumacher

Creativity comes through loopholes

London developer building 500 bedrooms around one living room

China - creative, counterintuitive developments

The profession becomes boring and stifling

Creativity has to start with entrepreneurial developers' creativity.

Adam Hengels

Developers have been trained to be compliance machines

To be creative, find a loophole

Adam Hengels

Parafin - Artificial intelligence platform that uses generative design and parametric modeling to rapidly generate optimized buildings.

Rather than wait weeks for architects to turn around a handful of options and then run cost analyses, Parafin generates millions of design options with cost analysis within minutes.

Patrik Schumacher

Research project to use parametric modeling to evaluate complex campuses

Adam Hengels

Computational analysis of development and design rather than relying on entrepreneurs' and architects' intuition

Patrik Schumacher

The city is the best place for discovering synergies

We love that chaos, liveliness, diversity, mixity of uses

The city is all about coming together, connecting up networking for synergetic activities

Freedom of uses is necessary for cities to self-organize into complex, navigable places

Architect gives shape and expression to this to allow people to find places and each other

It shouldn't be a city sliced up into individual blocks and cells, it should be very open

Inter-visibility and awareness. Multiple levels, dense, and organic

Adam Hengels

Cities as a rainforest – unplanned order and synergy

Patrik Schumacher

Bottom-up order

Identity and coherence, navigable

Garbage spill urbanization - cities all look the same

Multi-species ecology generates character and order. Rule-based, not random

Bottom-up forces need to be free to give shape to their environment

Question from audience

For a private, city-scale developer, it may be optimal for planning to take place. With no plan, cost of starting is much higher.

How do you balance the costs and benefits of planning in private development?

Patrik Schumacher

London's great estates - large parcels of land were planned

Planning as curation

Curation needs to go by something

It can be experimental and competitive at different scales

Allow for something new to emerge - more anarchic and chaotic

Adam Hengels

Planning has to happen at some level

Plan synergies of the private developer

Need to have flexibility in the long run

Need to recognize that cities are an emergent order

Question from audience

Should we get government out of the business of insuring risky lending?

Should we restrict certain types of building, i.e. in watersheds? 

Adam Hengels

In 2008, big banks should have failed.

In favor of not building in a watershed, but its a question of how you do it - with the heavy hand of government, or some other mechanism?

Patrik Schumacher

In a scenario where everything was privatized, owners of water resources would secure the benefits of long-term preservation and profitability of the resource.

Self-regulation

Individual land-owners could come together and organize

Built environment is complex, lots of externalities. It's more politicized than some other industries (i.e. fashion).

There are entrepreneurial and market solutions

Question from audience

What is the most difficult city you've ever worked in, and why?

Adam Hengels

Worked in NYC and Chicago, studied in Boston.

Cambridge, MA may be more difficult than NYC.

Chicago is a free market paradise compared to New York, but it's far from free in reality.

Patrik Schumacher

More dense, mature, and wealthy places are slower

When you add a new piece to this context, you have to be sensitive

This is made difficult by planning restrictions on improvisation

A lot of value is destroyed by things not happening - projects rejected, postponed, or cancelled

The land value that planning approval adds (to existing land values) has shot up in London from 50% of GDP to 200% of GDP

Adam Hengels

What's the longest time one of your projects has been tied up in approvals?

Patrik Schumacher

In Italy, the government changed ten times during the course of a project.

What should have taken 3-4 years took 11 years.

Question from audience

California senator Scott Weiner introducing a bill (SB 827) to supersede local planning restrictions around transit. Resistance is from homeowners and incumbent developers. What is the market urbanism answer to removing power of homeowners rather than bureaucracy?

Adam Hengels

That bill (SB 827) looks awesome. If you're a certain radius from a transit station, the local governments cannot impose height restrictions below a certain amount, cannot impose density restrictions. Opening a good dialogue.

Why are we preventing people from living in transit-served locations, because there are incumbent homeowners who don't like it?

Question from audience

What is the market urbanism answer to removing power of homeowners rather than bureaucracy?

Patrik Schumacher 

I don't think homeowners should necessarily have this power to prevent development in one area.

There's no fast and ready formula that defines what is infringement on someone else's property.

Preventing new building that doesn't affect someone else's property, just affects someone's feeling, is too much protectionism.

In markets you don't prevent someone from opening a firm and competing with you.

There needs to be a political debate about the kind of rules that should be acceptable.

NIMBYism is the force behind the politics. That sense of entitlement needs to be broken.

Political discourse shouldn't always lead to majority voting on everything. 

YIMBY proposal in London to have people collectively agree to allow increased density on their streets.

Question from audience

Smart Cities - Are data-driven tools for cities dangerous munitions, or will they help planners do a better job?

Adam Hengels

There's a potential for both

Empowered with better information, in theory they should make better decisions 

But that information could be released to the public or open-source so everyone can make better decisions

Patrik Schumacher

It should empower private planners.

It's not only an information problem, it's also an incentive problem.

In political processes, the feedback is very coarse and crude - bundled into 4-year elections with everything else.

Market urbanism gives voice and empowerment to everybody.

Information is often lacking, governments often have counter-incentives for applying the information.

Question from audience

European cities appear as green, new urbanism paradises.

Is "going green" another layer of regulation, or does it help to further the main goals of a city as the interaction between people?

Patrik Schumacher

One-size-fits-all rules of energy conservation make little sense

Incentives to save energy should be in the market. Eliminate subsidies.

I believe carbon trading is an interim measure.

Improve walkability of cities. This kind of greening would be synergetic and congenial to a privatization effort.

There could be some kind of collective action underlying this, but the political process is very slow (decades).

Adam Hengels

If government is going to talk about the environment, it should start by stopping doing the things that they're doing that are hurting the environment.

Stop subsidizing the automobile

Stop building all these damn highways

Stop war

Before you tell someone else what to do, you gotta have virtue yourself.

Question from audience

Hudson County NJ has half a million people. What prevents it from being the core of an independent city as opposed to a bedroom community that sends commuters to Manhattan?

Adam Hengels

It doesn't have the agglomeration that Manhattan does

Zoning policies may prevent increased agglomeration

Question from audience

The title is "Startup Cities," which presupposes cities getting started.

How many of you in the audience have actually attempted to start a city?

Learn about what it takes to incorporate a city, it's not as hard as you think.

If you were able to incorporate a city, you would be able to set up a planning and zoning board (not that you should!)

But you could craft planning boards that could be more friendly to the ideas presented here.

For a "city-preneur," what sorts of things should they be looking at when starting a city from scratch?

Adam Hengels

The first question is why. Why are you starting a city?

How and why are people going to come together?

I've become more humbled that we could or should be starting cities from scratch.

Start small, with some economic reason.

Patrik Schumacher

In most of these private city projects, it's not only a new city, it's a new society.

Its a libertarian project of a more free market driven society.

Existing cities are politically captured.

Since the whole world is so politically stifled, a private city could create incentives as a free economic zone to draw people.

Would try to avoid zoning functions / uses. Allow speculation of uses.

Could have a sounding board advising.

Try out as much freedom as possible and do not be paranoid about freedom and what could come out of it.

Peter Ryan

The largest tax contributor in Florida, Disney World, was a startup city.

Interesting to look into the dynamic of how they bought the land, worked with the state, and developed legal systems that were customised for themselves, zoning regulations, building codes, were tailor fit.

While floating islands in the Pacific are a good bar to reach for, there are plenty of examples of private cities in the past that we can go back to.

Adam Hengels

Website: marketurbanism.com

Twitter: @marketurbanism

Facebook

A new non-profit organization - The Center for Market Urbanism

Nolan Gray is head of policy and research

Events – Foundation for Economic Education FEEcon this summer in Atlanta. Patrik will keynote the Market Urbanism track.

A collaborative book project summarizing the policies of Market Urbanism.

Patrik Schumacher

Giving a lecture tomorrow at the National Arts Club

Talking about architecture and societal progress

The built environment as ordered social processes

The city as a text, a system of signification, etc.

Website - www.patrikschumacher.com

Facebook

YouTube

Talking about free market urbanism, also illustrating the history of urban development through various stages of socio-economic development

Peter Ryan

Startup Cities

Website: startupcities.co

Hashtag #startupcities

Joe's impressions of the event

Seething envy

Nothing ever happens in Australia

The growing impact of Market Urbanism

Parafin - AI powered development modeling

Joe's household budget spreadsheet has become self-aware

When is a computational approach best suited to the project?

One-liners

"They're not planning, they're reacting"

"Gaming the planners" - a recipe for corruption

It's not rule of law, it's rule of men

Would NIMBYism be worse under private ownership of public space?

Home Owner's Associations (HOA's)

Density entices development of amenities and transit

NIMBYism is a symptom of government-induced sprawl

Increasing urbanism is an inevitable trend, not the result of a vote

The inherent bias in favor of incumbent homeowners under democracy

The opposite incentive could be the case under private cities

Curation

Allowing more organic entrepreneurial devlopment

Pruning and weeding

Curation by dispute resolution and pre-emptive public fora

Scott Wiener's SB 827

Upzoning Beverly Hills

The state government as a check on local government overreach - are anarchists ok with this?

Startup Cities - Literally!

Cities as an entrepreneurial venture

Innovating cities

Do cities need to be grown organically, or can they be created from scratch?

Seasteading

Liberland

Economic freedom can provide the seed of a successful city - Hong Kong, Singapore

Post-event activities and name-dropping

Market Urbanism started as a blog, is becoming a movement

YouTube slideshow of notes summarizing the discussion: https://youtu.be/ujq1WGri4wA

Livestream Video of this event on Urbanist

Startup Cities

Peter Ryan's Startup Cities: Urbanization as Opportunity manifesto

Market Urbanism

Website/Blog

Twitter: @marketurbanism

Don't miss Market Urbanism at FEEcon 2018, featuring Adam, Patrik, and many other Market Urbanists!

Adam Hengels

Parafin

Patrik Schumacher

Anarchitecture Podcast's Patrik Schumacher Series

patrikschumacher.com – Patrik’s publications, interviews, and lectures, including his two-volume book on architectural theory, “The Autopoiesis of Architecture”

Zaha Hadid Architects

California's SB 827

A cool Interactive Visualization of the Potential Effects of SB 827

Why SB 827 Failed

Emily Hamilton on the inherent bias towards incumbent resident voters (on Market Urbanism, of course)

Sandy Springs, GA - Outsourcing the city

Seasteading

Liberland - a Startup Country

Sandy Ikeda: Is there a Libertarian Architecture?

Nolan Gray bio

Stephen Smith bio