Must Read The problem with elevators in America. Market Urbanism’s Stephen Smith has an op-ed in the New York Times opening up a new front in the YIMBY effort to expand housing supply in the US. Smith argues that the…
What City Observatory Did This Week Unique Local Experiences: The Hidden Value in Urban Economies. An often-overlooked aspect of urban economics: the value of unique, local, and seasonal experiences. We take as an example the case of Hood strawberries in…
Perishable, special, and local: The economics of unique and fleeting experiences I pity you, dear reader. You likely have no idea what a real strawberry tastes like. Unless you spend the three weeks around the Summer Solstice in the shadow…
What City Observatory Did This Week Inventing a “commitment” to megaproject cost-overruns. Oregon’s Department of Transportation is is trying to re-write history to create a commitment to unapproved freeway s and massive cost overruns. They’re using this fiction to argue that…
How ODOT is trying to re-write history to create a commitment to freeway cost overruns. The 2017 Legislature authorized zero funding for the I-205 Bridge project In 2024, ODOT now falsely claims that the I-205 project was a “commitment” of…