The Irish government has introduced rent controls across Dublin to combat increases in rent over the last couple of years. What policy prescription would you recommend as an alternative to them? Sometimes I compare markets to gravity and gravity is over there. And rent control is a flying carpet. It's land in your backyard. For the rest of the population, housing should be provided by the market. You have to establish how many people are there. Usually if it is more than two or three or four percent of the population,. you'll have to adjust what is minimum acceptable, socially acceptable standard.
Markets, Alain Bertaud likes to say, are like gravity: they exist everywhere. But while urban planners are quite good at taking gravity into account, they tend to ignore market forces entirely in their designs, resulting in city development that too often fails to address the needs of their residents.
Following the release of his recent book, Order Without Design: How Markets Shape Cities, Alain joined Tyler in New York City for a discussion of the politics affecting urban centers, his advice to Robert Moses, whether the YIMBY movement can win, why he loves messy cities, what he got wrong about Shenzhen, why the Moscow subway is so wonderful, whether cities can move, favorite movies about cities, the region of the world most likely to start a charter city, how to reform the World Bank, his top three NYC planning reforms, why Central Park is the perfect size, and more.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.
Recorded September 9th, 2019 Other ways to connect