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...