Giving you options for links because I’m comradely like that:
Not sure I agree with the thesis or not, but it’s interesting to think about. It’s true that there are lots of very good non-grid cities. I’ve always thought that the main purpose of grids is to be understandable to the human mind, which maybe isn’t that important a goal, and lots of things flow well in a complex way: look at our own circulatory systems.
Reminds me of “Strong Towns”, the astroturf group dedicated to making people hate roads but also to hate all other forms of transportation.
I really want to look up their finances, I’m convinced that the new libertarian urbanism pitch is a comibation of developers and capitalist interests using them and certain “content creators” to build consensus that actually, you want to live in a 500 square ft room and live in a city that only has bus rapid transit. Does anyone know how to look up non-profit finances? I used to have a tool at my old job where I could do this easily but I dont have access to it anymore
They aren’t directly connected as far as I know but Chuck Marohn used to write a new urbanist series in the American Conservative. They mainly try to appeal to conservatives with their fiscal arguments and it resonates with some.
Chuck Marohn? The president of their organization as listed on their 990s from 2013-2015?
Googled them, found it. TIN: 27-1459378
Also found this
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/271459378/201823199349316362/full
While not completely transparent they can’t really hide who they are. Big donors need to know who they are supporting through their largesse, which is why nonprofits will always have a page full of pr headshots and bios for their board members and usually list their corporate sponsors.
I wasn’t aware of the second part, they do that? I found them in like 2018 and don’t remember that angle. But I already biked and bussed regularly.
I started seeing them about the same time. Read a few of their articles and, once you get down below the fold, they never seem interested in any kind of answer other than “deregulation” and “stop spending money on things”. Its very nakedly libertarian the farther in you go.
yeah like density+public transit is good but something I’ve seen is a take that we should do transit oriented development without transit. Seems to me to be a neo-liberal attempt to juice more money from public spaces while providing less public services and simply telling people they should suck it up because the charts and graphs tell them it’s a good thing.
Chuck is fairly libertarian and conservative, and he makes the case for walkable cities purely through a financial lens. He is a recovering engineer, with all that entails. It is decidedly NOT an astroturf group, but it is full of folks that still think conservatives can be reached through facts and logic so take it for what it’s worth.
