What if scrapping one flawed policy could bring US cities closer to addressing debilitating housing shortages, stunted growth and innovation, persistent racial and economic segregation, and car-dependent development?It’s time for America to move beyond zoning, argues city planner M. Nolan Gray in Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It. With lively explanations and stories, Gray shows why zoning abolition is a necessary—if not suffici...

The conversation about zoning has meandered its way through issues ranging from housing affordability to economic growth to segregation, expanding in the process from a public policy backwater to one of the most discussed policy issues of the day. In his pioneering 1972 study, Land Use Without Zoning, Bernard Siegan first set out what has today emerged as a common-sense perspective: Zoning not only fails to achieve its stated ends of ordering urban growth and separating incompatible uses, ...

After the bombs fell, the coasts burned and the government vanished. But in the forgotten center of America, something ancient stirred—resilience. Set in the wake of World War III, WW3: The Midwest Compact tells the story of a fractured country where only the heartland survives. From shattered cornfields and silent towns, a new alliance is born—not of power, but of people. Veterans. Farmers. Mechanics. Widows. Children. Led by the quiet force of Commander Dominic Reese and the reluctant ri...

Reclaiming Labor is a passionate, well-researched, and timely manifesto for reinvigorating the American labor movement. Author Nolan Gray takes readers on a compelling journey through the history, triumphs, setbacks, and future of unions in the United States. From the gritty factory floors of the 20th century to the modern battlegrounds of gig work and automation, this book examines what went wrong—and how labor can rise again. Blending factual reporting with bold ideas, Gray outlines acti...

This volume explores, both in theory and in practice, what “social coordination” is and how public policies can help or hinder the processes of social coordination. In particular, these chapters examine the institutional incentives that motivate public policy decisions and their implementation to achieve specific individual and social goals. Some chapters in this volume are more theoretical, applying insights from the Austrian, Virginia, and Bloomington schools of political economy to publ...

The arbitrary lines of zoning maps across the country have come to dictate where Americans may live and work, forcing cities into a pattern of growth that is segregated and sprawling.The good news is that reform is in the air, with states across the country critically reevaluating zoning. In cities as diverse as Minneapolis, Fayetteville, and Hartford, the key pillars of zoning are under fire, with apartment bans being scrapped, minimum lot sizes dropping, and off-street parking re...

Much ink has been spilled in recent years talking about political divides and inequality in the United States. But these discussions too often miss one of the most important factors in the divisions among Americans: the fundamentally unequal nature of the nation's housing systems.And this divide deepens other inequalities. Increasingly, important life outcomes—performance in school, employment, even life expectancy—are determined by where people live and the quality of homes they l...

One third of people living in the United States do not have a driver license. Because the majority of involuntary nondrivers are disabled, lower income, unhoused, formerly incarcerated, undocumented immigrants, kids, young people, and the elderly, they are largely invisible. The consequence of this invisibility is a mobility system designed almost exclusively for drivers. This system has human-health, environmental, and quality-of-life costs for everyone, not just for those excluded from i...

In the US we are nearing four million road deaths since we began counting them in 1899. The numbers are getting worse, yet we continue to accept these deaths as part of doing business. There has been no examination of why we engineer roads that are literally killing us.In Killed by a Traffic Engineer, civil engineering professor Wes Marshall shines a spotlight on how little science there is behind the way that our streets are engineered, which leaves safety as an afterthou...

In this book, Jane Jacobs, building on the work of her debut, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, investigates the delicate way cities balance the interplay between the domestic production of goods and the ever-changing tide of imports. Using case studies of developing cities in the ancient, pre-agricultural world, and contemporary cities on the decline, like the financially irresponsible New York City of the mid-sixties, Jacobs identifies the main drivers of urban prospe...

In Confessions of a Recovering Engineer, renowned speaker and author of Strong Towns Charles L. Marohn, Jr., delivers an accessible and engaging exploration of America's transportation system, laying bare the reasons why it no longer works as it once did, and how to modernize transportation to better serve local communities.You'll discover real-world examples of poor design choices and how those choices have dramatic and tragic effects on the lives of the people w...

In the US we are nearing four million road deaths since we began counting them in 1899. The numbers are getting worse in recent years, yet we continue to accept these deaths as part of doing business. There has been no examination of why we engineer roads that are literally killing us.Fixing the carnage on our roadways requires a change in mindset and a dramatic transformation of transportation. This goes for traffic engineers in particular because they are still the ones in charge...