Only Freedom can save our cities

Three weeks ago I had the opportunity to invite Patrik Schumacher to give a lecture at the European Students For Liberty’s Regional Conference, in Milan. Who is him? He is one of the most important architect in the world, being the principal of the architecture practice Zaha Hadid Architects.

Thanks to his long experience, he could talk about a possible solution for the growth of our cities. He started talking about parks explaining that their value is misleading. We believe that they do not have costs but, actually, they hide a lot of invisible costs. Their use is insufficient, if we compare it with the space they occupy. Moreover, their management is often not rational, but linked to the will of some bureaucrats.

Schmacher’s solution is “power to landowners”, who know the prices of the lands and can manage them in an efficient way. Bureaucracy and regulations, instead, are creating social differences, as well as raising prices. Freedom of choice is the only way to produce beauty and opportunities for everyone. If politicians really want to have inclusive cities, they have to privatize everything, including roads and squares.

Patrik Schumacher is also against public housing, because this kind of accomodation subsidizes underdevelopment and increases poverty. The solution proposed by Schumacher is to sell public houses to private agents and deregulate their use in order to have more buildable areas and, consequently, more affordable prices.

He showed that his theory is already practice in places like New York, where private enterprises are building beautiful areas and buildings, especially in the Hudson Yards. We can find similar projects even in the asiatic side of Istanbul, where several ownership models are competing, and in Gurgaon (India), where one area has been completely privatized.