4 Comments
Mar 28, 2022Liked by zach.dev

lovely! Thanks Zach.

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I mostly agree, but the city as a self-optimizing system does run into limitations such a transaction costs and externalities. It's often so costly to measure externalities that only governments can and have a reason to do this, and Coasean bargaining may not be a viable solution to externalities because of transaction costs. Think of the architectural externalities I wrote about for instance.

But I especially think it teachss an important lesson for designing street layouts. Roman-style street grids can adapt much easier to changes in density and transportation demands through merging smaller blocks into superblocks and making some groups of blocks car-free to create a more pedestrian-friendly neighborhood, or the other way around.

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I agree for the most part, but the city as a self-optimizing system does run into limitations such a transaction costs and externalities. It's often so costly to measure externalities that only governments can and have a reason to do this, and Coasean bargaining may not be a viable solution to externalities because of transaction costs. Think of the architectural externalities I wrote about for instance.

But I especially think it teachss an important lesson for designing street layouts. Roman-style street grids can adapt much easier to changes in density and transportation demands through merging smaller blocks into superblocks and making some groups of blocks car-free to create a more pedestrian-friendly neighborhood, or the other way around.

Expand full comment