the built environment of a stateless society
Episodes
Thursday Sep 05, 2019
Thursday Sep 05, 2019
Joe was interviewed on the "Sounds Like Liberty" podcast about:
- The music of Anarchitecture Podcast
- Our band
- The making of "Theme from Friends Against Government"
- How naming our band killed our faith in democracy (and might get us in trouble someday)
- 5 (or 10) albums that everybody needs to hear
Check out our band "Diametric" at diametricband.com, where you can stream our music and find links to spotify, itunes, and several other platforms.
Use hashtag #ana026 to reference this episode in a tweet, post, or comment
View full show notes at http://anarchitecturepodcast.com/ana026.
Read the rest of this entry »Thursday Jul 18, 2019
Thursday Jul 18, 2019
We interview Titus Gebel, the Founder, President and CEO of Free Private Cities Inc.
Free Private Cities is working towards building new, greenfield cities using a model of individual bilateral contracts between each citizen and the city owner/operator.
In his book, "Free Private Cities: Making Governments Compete for You," Titus describes why and how Free Private Cities should be developed.
Use hashtag #ana025 to reference this episode in a tweet, post, or comment
View full show notes at http://anarchitecturepodcast.com/ana025.
Read the rest of this entry »Thursday Jun 20, 2019
Thursday Jun 20, 2019
We expand on some of the more challenging issues raised during our interview with Chuck Marohn of Strong Towns in episode #ana023.
Use hashtag #ana024 to reference this episode in a tweet, post, or comment
View full show notes at anarchitecturepodcast.com/ana024.
Read the rest of this entry »Saturday May 18, 2019
Saturday May 18, 2019
Chuck Marohn's "Strong Towns" philosophy has been a huge influence on our thinking. StrongTowns.org has grown from a personal blog into one of the most influential urbanist movements in America, with thousands of members and millions of readers worldwide.
Strong Towns is common sense, yet iconoclastic: Cities and towns need to manage their finances responsibly, and develop their infrastructure accordingly.
While Chuck's prognoses may sound pessimistic, he believes that positive changes must happen at the level of the local community, rather than chasing easy money from Wall Street and Washington. This is an approach that we can get behind.
Chuck's forthcoming book "Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity" is available for pre-order, and will be released on October 1st, 2019.
Use hashtag #ana023 to reference this episode in a tweet, post, or comment
View full show notes and links at http://anarchitecturepodcast.com/ana023
Read the rest of this entry »Wednesday May 01, 2019
Wednesday May 01, 2019
We expand on some of the AGENDA 21 topics raised in episode #ana021. We expand on Smart Growth, libertarian approaches to preserving nature, and Public-Private Partnerships.
Use hashtag #ana022 to reference this episode in a tweet, post, or comment
View full show notes at http://anarchitecturepodcast.com/ana022.
Read the rest of this entry »Thursday Apr 18, 2019
Thursday Apr 18, 2019
We join the Friends Against Government Podcast for a "Conspiracy Court" trial of UN AGENDA 21. From Smart Meters, to Smart Growth, to Smart Cities, to Smart Deer, how afraid should we be?
This episode is Not Suitable for Work, or really for any self-respecting human being.
Use hashtag #ana021 to reference this episode in a tweet, post, or comment
View full show notes at anarchitecturepodcast.com/ana021.
Read the rest of this entry »Wednesday Nov 07, 2018
Wednesday Nov 07, 2018
Is community compatible with libertarian individualism?
At the Freecoast Festival V in Portsmouth, NH, Tim told the story of how he came to understand the necessity of community in Panama. He discussed:
- How community should be understood from the perspective of individualism, and in contrast to collectivism.
- Four Bases of Community: People, Place, Profit, and Philosophy
- How the Free State Project has unintentionally created an incredibly strong community of libertarians in New Hampshire, and how this community has made liberty possible for each individual.
This episode includes Tim's full speech and a post-game discussion with Tim and Joe.
Download Slideshow as PDF
Use hashtag #ana020 to reference this episode in a tweet, post, or comment. View full show notes at http://anarchitecturepodcast.com/ana020.
Read the rest of this entry »
Sunday Aug 12, 2018
Sunday Aug 12, 2018
Tim's speech from Porcfest 2018 expands on the ideas he presented in his previous speech, and presents a more cohesive framework for addressing issues related to Public Space within libertarian theory. He challenges some libertarian orthodoxy, in particular Hans-Hermann Hoppe's conception of public space as simply an extension of private property.
Also: Helicopters 🚁🚁🚁
Use hashtag #ana019 to reference this episode in a tweet, post, or comment.
View full show notes at https://anarchitecturepodcast.com/ana019.
Download Slideshow as PDF
Read the rest of this entry »Saturday Jun 02, 2018
Saturday Jun 02, 2018
On January 15th, 2018, Startup Cities hosted a discussion panel featuring Adam Hengels, founder of Market Urbanism, and Patrik Schumacher, Principal of Zaha Hadid Architects. Hosted by Peter Ryan, Founder of Startup Cities.
This episode features the full audio recording of this event, plus Anarchitecture Podcast's pre-game and post-game discussion.
Use hashtag #ana018 to reference this episode in a tweet, post, or comment
View full show notes at http://anarchitecturepodcast.com/ana018.
Intro
Introduction to the event and participants
We're the color commentary; Market Urbanism is the play-by-play
A chance to connect with Market Urbanism, and reconnect with Patrik Schumacher
Tim's impressions of the event
Summary of topics covered
Audio quality - remember that our policy is to blame the listener for any and all audio quality issues. You're just not listening hard enough.
YouTube slideshow of notes summarizing the discussion: https://youtu.be/ujq1WGri4wA
Startup Cities Event Audio
Peter Ryan
Mission of Startup Cities: Bring investors and entrepreneurs from startup community to urban planning, real estate development, and architecture communities
Startup Cities sponsors
40% of buildings in Manhattan could not be built today with current zoning requirements
Patrik Schumacher
Biography
Was a communist as a student
Became more mainstream
Re-radicalized in libertarian thought and Austrian economics after 2008 financial crisis
Adam Hengels
Studied Architecture in college, then switched to Structural Engineering
Graduate school at MIT for real estate development, focusing on mega-projects
Worked for a developer on large projects (Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn, now Pacific Park)
Long-standing interest in urbanism
Saw what happened behind the scenes between government and developer (subsidies, eminent domain)
Also saw negative impacts of NIMBY groups
Adam Hengels
Sprawl is not a free-market phenomenon, it is government-created
Steven Smith and others started writing for Market Urbanism
Market Urbanism is a movement
Planning intelligentsia has started to come along. They admit that zoning is a problem.
Next step is closing the gap between the intelligentsia and the mainstream
Patrik Schumacher
Left-liberal consensus runs deep among intelligentsia
Peter Ryan
Did you (Patrik) perceive these ideas before 2008?
Patrik Schumacher
Was exploring other ideas about societal organization
Fordism - 20th century - Simpler industrial base and societal organization - more compatible with modernism
Post-fordism - More complex economic and societal organization - more urban concentration
Managed, state-run economy and development - a bad but viable idea in the 1950's, a suicidal idea today
Peter Ryan
Increased urbanism isn't a decision people are going to make, it is going to happen.
What role does market urbanism play in this inevitable development?
Adam Hengels
The future is a world of agglomeration.
People want to be around other people
The great ideas of the future are going to happen in cities
Patrik Schumacher
Cities create the conditions under which productivity can soar and flourish
People are willing to give up 80% of their salary to be in the city center and participate in the city network
Living in the city is a socio-economic necessity, but urban life is also desirable
The city is a prosperity engine
Zoning and standards (i.e. housing) prevent people from making life choices. One-size fits all restrictions.
These regulations prevent affordablility. Talking about this topic is viciously toxic
Adam Hengels
There are also environmental consequences of planning regulations.
San Francisco is one of the most environmentally friendly places in the world to live.
The more we prevent people from living in San Francisco, the worse for the environment.
Peter Ryan
How do planning regulations distort what the architect does?
Patrik Schumacher
Regulations stifle innovation and creativity for architects and developers
Everything is predetermined
Entrepreneurs compete only on the basis of negotiating with authorities, rent-seeking
Basically there’s no market in real estate. That’s why it doesn’t function
These (negotiations with authorities) are invitations for corruption
Adam Hengels
Architects don't design buildings in NYC, zoning does.
90% of what you do is just compliance.
"Planners" isn't the right word. They're not planning, they're reacting.
Petty bureaucrats
Patrik Schumacher
Creativity comes through loopholes
London developer building 500 bedrooms around one living room
China - creative, counterintuitive developments
The profession becomes boring and stifling
Creativity has to start with entrepreneurial developers' creativity.
Adam Hengels
Developers have been trained to be compliance machines
To be creative, find a loophole
Adam Hengels
Parafin - Artificial intelligence platform that uses generative design and parametric modeling to rapidly generate optimized buildings.
Rather than wait weeks for architects to turn around a handful of options and then run cost analyses, Parafin generates millions of design options with cost analysis within minutes.
Patrik Schumacher
Research project to use parametric modeling to evaluate complex campuses
Adam Hengels
Computational analysis of development and design rather than relying on entrepreneurs' and architects' intuition
Patrik Schumacher
The city is the best place for discovering synergies
We love that chaos, liveliness, diversity, mixity of uses
The city is all about coming together, connecting up networking for synergetic activities
Freedom of uses is necessary for cities to self-organize into complex, navigable places
Architect gives shape and expression to this to allow people to find places and each other
It shouldn't be a city sliced up into individual blocks and cells, it should be very open
Inter-visibility and awareness. Multiple levels, dense, and organic
Adam Hengels
Cities as a rainforest – unplanned order and synergy
Patrik Schumacher
Bottom-up order
Identity and coherence, navigable
Garbage spill urbanization - cities all look the same
Multi-species ecology generates character and order. Rule-based, not random
Bottom-up forces need to be free to give shape to their environment
Question from audience
For a private, city-scale developer, it may be optimal for planning to take place. With no plan, cost of starting is much higher.
How do you balance the costs and benefits of planning in private development?
Patrik Schumacher
London's great estates - large parcels of land were planned
Planning as curation
Curation needs to go by something
It can be experimental and competitive at different scales
Allow for something new to emerge - more anarchic and chaotic
Adam Hengels
Planning has to happen at some level
Plan synergies of the private developer
Need to have flexibility in the long run
Need to recognize that cities are an emergent order
Question from audience
Should we get government out of the business of insuring risky lending?
Should we restrict certain types of building, i.e. in watersheds?
Adam Hengels
In 2008, big banks should have failed.
In favor of not building in a watershed, but its a question of how you do it - with the heavy hand of government, or some other mechanism?
Patrik Schumacher
In a scenario where everything was privatized, owners of water resources would secure the benefits of long-term preservation and profitability of the resource.
Self-regulation
Individual land-owners could come together and organize
Built environment is complex, lots of externalities. It's more politicized than some other industries (i.e. fashion).
There are entrepreneurial and market solutions
Question from audience
What is the most difficult city you've ever worked in, and why?
Adam Hengels
Worked in NYC and Chicago, studied in Boston.
Cambridge, MA may be more difficult than NYC.
Chicago is a free market paradise compared to New York, but it's far from free in reality.
Patrik Schumacher
More dense, mature, and wealthy places are slower
When you add a new piece to this context, you have to be sensitive
This is made difficult by planning restrictions on improvisation
A lot of value is destroyed by things not happening - projects rejected, postponed, or cancelled
The land value that planning approval adds (to existing land values) has shot up in London from 50% of GDP to 200% of GDP
Adam Hengels
What's the longest time one of your projects has been tied up in approvals?
Patrik Schumacher
In Italy, the government changed ten times during the course of a project.
What should have taken 3-4 years took 11 years.
Question from audience
California senator Scott Weiner introducing a bill (SB 827) to supersede local planning restrictions around transit. Resistance is from homeowners and incumbent developers. What is the market urbanism answer to removing power of homeowners rather than bureaucracy?
Adam Hengels
That bill (SB 827) looks awesome. If you're a certain radius from a transit station, the local governments cannot impose height restrictions below a certain amount, cannot impose density restrictions. Opening a good dialogue.
Why are we preventing people from living in transit-served locations, because there are incumbent homeowners who don't like it?
Question from audience
What is the market urbanism answer to removing power of homeowners rather than bureaucracy?
Patrik Schumacher
I don't think homeowners should necessarily have this power to prevent development in one area.
There's no fast and ready formula that defines what is infringement on someone else's property.
Preventing new building that doesn't affect someone else's property, just affects someone's feeling, is too much protectionism.
In markets you don't prevent someone from opening a firm and competing with you.
There needs to be a political debate about the kind of rules that should be acceptable.
NIMBYism is the force behind the politics. That sense of entitlement needs to be broken.
Political discourse shouldn't always lead to majority voting on everything.
YIMBY proposal in London to have people collectively agree to allow increased density on their streets.
Question from audience
Smart Cities - Are data-driven tools for cities dangerous munitions, or will they help planners do a better job?
Adam Hengels
There's a potential for both
Empowered with better information, in theory they should make better decisions
But that information could be released to the public or open-source so everyone can make better decisions
Patrik Schumacher
It should empower private planners.
It's not only an information problem, it's also an incentive problem.
In political processes, the feedback is very coarse and crude - bundled into 4-year elections with everything else.
Market urbanism gives voice and empowerment to everybody.
Information is often lacking, governments often have counter-incentives for applying the information.
Question from audience
European cities appear as green, new urbanism paradises.
Is "going green" another layer of regulation, or does it help to further the main goals of a city as the interaction between people?
Patrik Schumacher
One-size-fits-all rules of energy conservation make little sense
Incentives to save energy should be in the market. Eliminate subsidies.
I believe carbon trading is an interim measure.
Improve walkability of cities. This kind of greening would be synergetic and congenial to a privatization effort.
There could be some kind of collective action underlying this, but the political process is very slow (decades).
Adam Hengels
If government is going to talk about the environment, it should start by stopping doing the things that they're doing that are hurting the environment.
Stop subsidizing the automobile
Stop building all these damn highways
Stop war
Before you tell someone else what to do, you gotta have virtue yourself.
Question from audience
Hudson County NJ has half a million people. What prevents it from being the core of an independent city as opposed to a bedroom community that sends commuters to Manhattan?
Adam Hengels
It doesn't have the agglomeration that Manhattan does
Zoning policies may prevent increased agglomeration
Question from audience
The title is "Startup Cities," which presupposes cities getting started.
How many of you in the audience have actually attempted to start a city?
Learn about what it takes to incorporate a city, it's not as hard as you think.
If you were able to incorporate a city, you would be able to set up a planning and zoning board (not that you should!)
But you could craft planning boards that could be more friendly to the ideas presented here.
For a "city-preneur," what sorts of things should they be looking at when starting a city from scratch?
Adam Hengels
The first question is why. Why are you starting a city?
How and why are people going to come together?
I've become more humbled that we could or should be starting cities from scratch.
Start small, with some economic reason.
Patrik Schumacher
In most of these private city projects, it's not only a new city, it's a new society.
Its a libertarian project of a more free market driven society.
Existing cities are politically captured.
Since the whole world is so politically stifled, a private city could create incentives as a free economic zone to draw people.
Would try to avoid zoning functions / uses. Allow speculation of uses.
Could have a sounding board advising.
Try out as much freedom as possible and do not be paranoid about freedom and what could come out of it.
Peter Ryan
The largest tax contributor in Florida, Disney World, was a startup city.
Interesting to look into the dynamic of how they bought the land, worked with the state, and developed legal systems that were customised for themselves, zoning regulations, building codes, were tailor fit.
While floating islands in the Pacific are a good bar to reach for, there are plenty of examples of private cities in the past that we can go back to.
Adam Hengels
Website: marketurbanism.com
Twitter: @marketurbanism
A new non-profit organization - The Center for Market Urbanism
Nolan Gray is head of policy and research
Events – Foundation for Economic Education FEEcon this summer in Atlanta. Patrik will keynote the Market Urbanism track.
A collaborative book project summarizing the policies of Market Urbanism.
Patrik Schumacher
Giving a lecture tomorrow at the National Arts Club
Talking about architecture and societal progress
The built environment as ordered social processes
The city as a text, a system of signification, etc.
Website - www.patrikschumacher.com
YouTube
Talking about free market urbanism, also illustrating the history of urban development through various stages of socio-economic development
Peter Ryan
Startup Cities
Website: startupcities.co
Hashtag #startupcities
Post-Game Discussion
Joe's impressions of the event
Seething envy
Nothing ever happens in Australia
The growing impact of Market Urbanism
Parafin - AI powered development modeling
Joe's household budget spreadsheet has become self-aware
When is a computational approach best suited to the project?
One-liners
"They're not planning, they're reacting"
"Gaming the planners" - a recipe for corruption
It's not rule of law, it's rule of men
Would NIMBYism be worse under private ownership of public space?
Home Owner's Associations (HOA's)
Density entices development of amenities and transit
NIMBYism is a symptom of government-induced sprawl
Increasing urbanism is an inevitable trend, not the result of a vote
The inherent bias in favor of incumbent homeowners under democracy
The opposite incentive could be the case under private cities
Curation
Allowing more organic entrepreneurial devlopment
Pruning and weeding
Curation by dispute resolution and pre-emptive public fora
Scott Wiener's SB 827
Upzoning Beverly Hills
The state government as a check on local government overreach - are anarchists ok with this?
Startup Cities - Literally!
Cities as an entrepreneurial venture
Innovating cities
Do cities need to be grown organically, or can they be created from scratch?
Seasteading
Liberland
Economic freedom can provide the seed of a successful city - Hong Kong, Singapore
Post-event activities and name-dropping
Market Urbanism started as a blog, is becoming a movement
Links/Resources
YouTube slideshow of notes summarizing the discussion: https://youtu.be/ujq1WGri4wA
Livestream Video of this event on Urbanist
Peter Ryan's Startup Cities: Urbanization as Opportunity manifesto
Market Urbanism
Twitter: @marketurbanism
Don't miss Market Urbanism at FEEcon 2018, featuring Adam, Patrik, and many other Market Urbanists!
Adam Hengels
Patrik Schumacher
Anarchitecture Podcast's Patrik Schumacher Series
patrikschumacher.com – Patrik’s publications, interviews, and lectures, including his two-volume book on architectural theory, “The Autopoiesis of Architecture”
California's SB 827
A cool Interactive Visualization of the Potential Effects of SB 827
Emily Hamilton on the inherent bias towards incumbent resident voters (on Market Urbanism, of course)
Sandy Springs, GA - Outsourcing the city
Liberland - a Startup Country
Sandy Ikeda: Is there a Libertarian Architecture?
Thursday Mar 29, 2018
Thursday Mar 29, 2018
Tim and Joe were recently interviewed on "Declare Your Independence with Ernest Hancock."
A wide ranging discussion covering everything from flying cars (of course) to flying pirate ships.
Use hashtag #ana017 to reference this episode in a tweet, post, or comment
View full show notes at anarchitecturepodcast.com/ana017.
Intro
Tim explains how this interview came about. Joe recorded it at 12:30AM in his car.
Discussion
Segment #1
Joe has been relegated to the car
Introduction to Tim, Joe and Anarchitecture Podcast
"BUT WHO WILL BUILD THE COMPLIANCE?"
Zoning creates more conflict than it solves
TRIPLE SNEEZE
Leave Me Alone-ism
DEAD AIR/ JOE'S BRAIN FART
Home Owner's Associations
What is the physical architecture of freedom?
FLYING CARS!
Break #1
Pirates Without Borders
"You gotta have a pirate ship"
Anarchy is only 62 miles straight up
"We're not off the grid - we're ABOVE the grid"
Segment #2
How do Anarchist children rebel?
Podcast launch and reach
A bridge between libertarianism and built environment/urbanism
The Market Urbanism movement - catching on, still some work to do
Is there a physical structure to freedom?
Oceania and Seasteading - "my own platform... honeycomb... kiss my butt."
Two extremes:
1. Individual plots of land/vehicles
2. Cities - benefits of network effects
Will a prosperous city always suffer predation/taxation?
Break #2
The last guy in the world to get into Blockchain
Jay Noone - Snow Plow / Cryptocurrency Consultant
Segment #3
Anarchitecture Profile
Changes in Latitude
Travel Plans
Podcast Feed Logistics
Badmirror.tv
Prospects for Liberty in Australia
QR Codes in the bush for gold miners
Break #3
The Precariat Airship
"Oh yeah - It goes to SPACE, man!"
Segment #4
Get People Thinking in 3D
Sergey Brin building his own airship
How Flying Cars will affect cities
Cities can offer something for everyone
Density leads to diversity and opportunity
"...but I want to live here in the Leave Me Alone Zone and Suck It"
Effects of freedom of transportation
Transportation reduces transaction cost, opens up markets
Break #4
Precariat Airship Materials
Zero-G Basketball Court
Links/Resources
Original Episode Post on Freedom's Phoenix