As the world becomes increasingly industrial and globalized, questions of environmental preservation, pollution, and resource conservation become increasingly important. If we care about both economic development and environmentalism, what factors should we consider in order to ask the right questions? What challenges are best handled by the private actors in the free market, and when should government step in to prevent or correct environmental harms? Join us for a variety of perspectives on the effectiveness of public and private solutions in addressing environmental concerns. 

Recorded at FEECon 2018.

Public and private transportation in the past, present and future. How economics and transportation shapes the places we live. Recorded at FEECon 2018.

Mobility is one of the main factors that explains the productivity of large cities. Urban transport policy's main objective should be to increase mobility, i.e. to decrease commuting time by increasing travel speed. Too often transport policies rely on anticipated utopian land use changes to justify the design of a preferred transport mode. Increasing mobility becomes then only a secondary objective. Recorded at FEECon 2018.

Capitalism was and is the great prosperity engine behind all the material freedoms of modern life. Tragically capitalism is not allowed to work its magic with what matters most to us, namely our dwellings and cities. Urban development and housing provision have been unduly politicised and thereby paralyzed. We should be experiencing an urban Renaissance as crucial productivity boosting component of our knowledge-and network society. Instead planning restrictions and imposed standards block the adequate supply of urban residences leading to prohibitive prices. Paradoxically, the affordability system contributes to, rather than alleviates the affordability crisis. Recorded at FEECon 2018.

Why are young people and immigrants struggling to afford to live in your city? It’s simple supply and demand, and decades of government policy at multiple levels is making matters worse. Recorded at FEECon 2018.

Jane Jacobs famously argued that “a city cannot be a work of art.” Rather, a city is a place where people with diverse knowledge, skills, and tastes change space, make and break ties, and transform resources and ideas in innovative and controversial ways. It’s an unpredictable, messy, even dangerous, but deeply creative process. Recorded at FEECon 2018.

Zoning is justified in all sorts of ways today, but at its birth – arguably in New York City, in 1916 – it was aimed squarely at halting what upper-class New Yorkers saw as the decay of the city, as neighborhoods built for the rich filtered down to the city's growing immigrant masses. A century later, the movement is in the other direction – the rich are outbidding middle-class and poor New Yorkers for space, in a phenomenon known as gentrification. New Yorkers tend to view development as the cause, but a more careful reading of history shows that it's zoning and the housing shortage that it's created that are responsible for the reversal, and for the growing waves of displacement washing over cities from New York to San Francisco. Recorded at FEECon 2018

Our Libertarian Writers' panel brings together writers from dierent mediums who share a common passion. FEE sta writer Brittany Hunter, comedian Lou Perez, YouTuber Julie Borowski and author Connor Boyack provide practical advice on building a career as a writer around ideas you are passionate about. Recorded at FEECon 2018.

Atlanta film-industry heavyweights, Drew Sawyer (Moonshine Post) and Chris LeDoux (Crafty Apes) discuss what it takes to grow a highly successful business in a tremendously competitive creative field. You do not want to miss what these two have to say. Recorded at FEECon 2018.

For creative professionals, it's important to understand how to run a successful business. For The Business of Being Creative Panel, we'll be covering negotiating contracts, dealing with clients, and paying your taxes. Reason TV's Meredith Bragg, visual artist Lela Brunet Raymond, and award-winning street photographer, Jonathan Higbee share their wisdom on lessons learned. Recorded at FEECon 2018.