Scott Beyer - Market Urbanism: A vision for free-market cities

Praise (and criticism) for Market Urbanism

Market urbanism may well be the most significant movement in urbanism of the past decade. And no one is more closely associated with it than Scott Beyer, the Market Urbanist.

While I am not a died-in-the-wool market urbanist, I have learned a ton from Beyer, his colleagues and the movement they are part of. Americas urban revitalization of the past two decades has been premised on widely decentralized and highly local approaches to private-public partnership. It is clear as a proverbial bell that markets play a key role in urban economies and urban life. So, liberalizing them and allowing them to function more efficiently is the key to creating more affordable, loveable and functional cities. And this is particularly the case for revamping zoning and building codes to allow for the provision of more affordable housing and using congestion pricing to help overcome congestion and gridlock. If you want to understand the burgeoning market urbanist perspective, read this book.

Richard Florida, author, The Rise of the Creative Class

Market Urbanists claim to believe in free-market outcomes, but when the results of free-market processes differ from what the Market Urbanists think they ought to be, they are as willing as any other central planners to use the power of government to force people to behave the way the urbanists think they should. Polls show that 80 percent of Americans prefer or aspire to live in single-family homes and Americans drive for more than 95 percent of urban travel for the good reason that automobiles can access far more economic opportunities in a given travel time than any other mode of travel. Yet Market Urbanists, like other urban planners, think it is their duty to increase urban densities, forcing more people into multifamily housing, partly with the goal of reducing the amount of driving people do.

Scott Beyer, the author of this book, isnt as bad as some of the Market Urbanists. But he is overly enamored with increasing urban densities and justifies that belief with claims about costs of low-density development that cannot be substantiated. This is not the way most people want to live, especially in the wake of a pandemic during which leading authorities have encouraged people to distance themselves from one another.

Randal OToole, senior fellow, Cato Institute

I am far from a libertarian, but I have found the market urbanism movement a stimulating and important voice in the current debates. Its undoubtedly the case that cities are over-regulated in key areas like housing where allowing the market greater room to flourish would be of great value. Scotts work in particular shows a motivation and concern for the opportunities available to people, and their well-being too often missing from abstract policy debates.

Aaron Renn, contributing editor, City Journal

The concept of market urbanism that underlies Scott Beyers work carries an important insight that becomes all the more crucial the more cities grow in scale, complexity and dynamism, namely that the intricate order of cooperation that makes cities engines of prosperity can only evolve bottom up, on the basis of everybodys free exploration of potential co-location synergies. Hayeks notion of market competition as discovery process, guided by the profit and loss system that empowers productive discoveries and cuts short mistaken ventures, also applies to urban investments.

Patrik Schumacher, principal, Zaha Hadid Architects

Housing markets are, first and foremost, markets. Yet conservatives and liberals often fail to consider basic economic principles when it comes to housing issues. Scott Beyers Market Urbanism Report is a gem the rare site that looks beyond government planning and actually wrestles with tough questions about freedom and economics in the urbanism context.

Steven Greenhut, R Street Institute western director

The days of megalomaniac top-down planning are over and rightly so. New city projects, like Free Private Cities are clearly preferring Market Urbanism over top-down solutions. After all, the market is comprising of the people, and they should have a say in how their city is shaped.

Titus Gebel, author, Free Private Cities

Scott Beyer has focused on how healthy, compact cities are a natural result of free enterprise, and how government policies, particularly zoning, regulatory, and tax policies, have created ghettos and have made cities less affordable and less prosperous than they should be.

Dan Sullivan, vice president, Council of Georgist Organizations

For many years, the conventional wisdom in some quarters was that support for the free market meant support for urban decline and the dominance of car-dependent suburbs. In recent decades, the market urbanist movement has shown otherwise. Market urbanists argue that government regulation in fact causes sprawl, by limiting the amount of housing and businesses that can locate in walkable areas.

Scott Beyer was one of the leading market urbanist commentators; in a variety of media, he has made the case for market urbanism. In this book, he builds on his online work.

Michael Lewyn, author, Government Intervention
and Suburban Sprawl: The Case for Market Urbanism

Market Urbanism

A vision for free-market cities

Copyright 2021 by Scott Beyer

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the author.

ISBN 979-8-9850040-0-7

Published by:

Market Urbanism Report

Contents

Part 1

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Part 2

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Part 3

Chapter 8

Conclusion

Glossary of Terms

ADU: accessory dwelling unit

APA: American Planning Association

AV: autonomous vehicle

BID: business improvement district

BMR: below market rate

BRT: bus rapid transit

CBA: community benefits agreement

CBD: central business district

CNU: Congress for the New Urbanism

DOT: Department of Transportation

DRB: design review board

DRT: demand-responsive transit

DUA: dwelling units per acre

EV: electric vehicle

FAR: floor-area ratio

FBC: form-based code

HOA: homeowners association

HOT: high-occupancy toll

HOV: high-occupancy vehicle

HSR: high-speed rail

HUD: Department of Housing and Urban Development

IZ: inclusionary zoning

LIHTC: low-income housing tax credits

LVT: land value tax

MTA: Metropolitan Transportation Agency

MUR: Market Urbanism Report

NAHB: National Association of Homebuilders

NIMBY: not in my backyard

PHA: public housing agency

P3: public-private partnership

PUD: planned unit development

ROW: right-of-way

SCOTUS: Supreme Court of the United States

SEZ: special economic zone

SFR: single-family residential

SOV: single-occupancy vehicle

SUP: special use permit

SRO: single-room occupancy

TDR: transfer of development rights

TIF: tax increment financing

TOD: transit-oriented development

UGB: urban growth boundary

ULI: Urban Land Institute

VMT: vehicle miles traveled

YIMBY: yes in my backyard