There’s a set of norms that are required for successful governance in a developed state: transparency, professional civil service with no political overclass, strong political parties, consensus that the basic functions of the state should exist. The state cannot provide public services like infrastructure, health, education, and security without these. States that lack these try […]
A new paper is making the round arguing that Spanish rural automobility is a response to peripheralization. It’s a mix of saying what is obvious – in rural areas there is no public transportation and therefore cars are required for basic mobility – and proposing this as a way of dealing with the general marginalization […]
The biggest housing activism push in North America right now has moved on from YIMBYism to housing reforms to allow single-stair mid-rise buildings, called point access blocks. My off-hand reference to this last post ended up being the main issue debated in comments; this compounds a post by Matt Yglesias from November that I’ve been […]