The Henry George Program

Sy Adler, professor of Urban Studies and Planning at Portland State University, is here to talk about his 1980 manuscript, Redundancy in Public Transit - Vol III. The Political Economy of Transit in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945-63, which documents the complicated political territory in various metros and sub-metros that led to the birth of BARTD. We also discuss the rise of municipal ownership in bus agencies, real estate development, land value capture, sprawl, and much more.

We have on Daniel Wortel-London to discuss his new book "The Menace of Prosperity: New York City and the Struggle for Economic Development, 1865–1981", which covers a century of ideological evolution as to urban economics, growth strategies, the georgist movement, sprawl, and much more; in what ways can the political topography of 19th century urban politics still tell us about the future of modern cities?

Everybody's talking about Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson's 'Abundance', the book about the future of a Democratic Party politics about building more; we have on Chirag Lala (director of energy for the Center of Public Enterprise) and Adriana Rizzo (of Californians for Electric Rail, among other hats worn) to talk about what the book does right, and what it misses; deep dive into energy policy, overview of its housing policy sins and omissions, and a loose discussion on its curious concept of politics.

The Center for Land Economics has just launched; its co-founder Greg Miller is here to talk about its mission to spread LVT, better judge assesssor offices, and explain how to work with state governments. We talk about state-level enabling legislation and constitutional hurdles, and much more.

Nicholas Laschkewitsch is with the American Coaster Enthusiasts (N. California chapter), and has been a lifelong fan of Santa Clara's amusement park, California's Great America. Until 2019, the city owned the land; just a few years after selling the land off, the operator resold the land for a profit and announced the closure of the park. We talk more about this, as well as larger issues of how urban areas and recreation coincide, the future of amusement parks, coaster NIMBYs, and much more.

Josh Junker is back with more info deep from Cincy archives: what can we learn from decades of development snafus in Cincinnati's core‒what does this mean for systems of private/public cooperation, and what could be done better? Also updates on how the Cincinnati municipal rail sale turned out, talk about interstate transit planning (Josh's op-ed here), and the surreal proposals that the city commissioned to use the subway for non-subway purposes (Josh proposes using the subway tunnels for subways).

"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?