The Henry George Program

"Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis: A Fable" (2024, Francis Ford Coppola) is a Christmas classic, but also offers a great deal of insight into 20th century urban issues, urban politics, de-slumming, liberal ideology, democracy, etc. What can this movie tell us about the boomer brain?

Part two of interview on transit costs: more focus on public-private partnerships, talking about how risk is managed/mismanaged in these arrangements, a case study on Shafter, CA, and talking about public ownership of right of way.

A deep-dive with Jordan Grimes and Derek of EB4E into affordable housing initiatives, the nitty-gritty of how the bonding for this operates, how to make regional affordable housing more efficient and accountable, and how Proposition 5, reducing anti-democratic measures against issuing bonds, will affect this for housing and transit. Sidelines on how to defeat realtors politically and more.

In part one of a super-charged episode, we have Eric Goldwyn of the Transit Costs Project on to discuss the recent publication, "How to Improve Domestic High-Speed Rail Project Delivery"; what practical political and policy changes do we need to scale up high-speed rail and more useful transit to more places?

Marc-William Palen is a historian and author of "Pax Economica: Left-Wing Visions of a Free Trade World"; he's on the show to discuss how free trade was once not the purview of neoliberals and free-traders, but rather a varied group of left-wing ideologues, from pacifists to georgists to feminists, and how these strains influenced key aspects of super-national institution-building, but foundered against the cold war and American hegemony. What can we learn as the modern GOP invokes McKinley-era tariffs as a new model?

Stephen Hoskins is on for a round of meta-discourse, as we try to classify and understand the many flavors of anti-yimbyism and anti-georgism for all corners for the ideological spectrum. With some discussion on New Zealand housing, and more‒

Christopher England is the author of "Land and Liberty: Henry George and the Crafting of Modern Liberalism", a history of the land reform movement in the time of Henry George and after‒today on the program, we talk about the contours of the political strategy and history covered in this text, in particular the make-or-break years of 1900-1920. How were "the interests" addressed, and what lessons does this have for us today?

Kevin Burke from East Bay for Everyone is here to talk about the latest in Housing Elements; we get into the weeds on how different jurisdictions have complied and struggled against the process, get into details on quantifying fair housing standards, talk about land value, and of course get into Builder's Remedy (which Kevin wrote about in the SF Chron in 2022.

Robert Fairbanks is here to talk about his 1988 book, "Making Better Citizens: Housing Reform and the Community Development Strategy in Cincinnati, 1890-1960"; we discuss the rise of the anti-slum movement, how it evolved from decade to decade owing to different ideological and political shifts, and how it resulted in wide-scale urban renewal and the displacement of countless residents. The environment here is Cincinnati, but with fairly universal relevance.

Rohin Ghosh has moved on to school in DC, and has been keeping busy by acquiring public office (!); he informs us all about how DC's ANCs work, as well as larger dynamics of housing in our nation's capital. Also talk on tenant organizing, as well what this means for democracy more generally.