Cities throughout the West face rising crime, soaring housing

costs, a sprawling homelessness crisis and devastated

downtown areas following two years of COVID restrictions and

the aftermath of destructive protests. Policymakers typically

address these and other urban problems in a piecemeal

fashion. They fail to understand what makes great cities thrive.

The Free Cities Center is Pacific Research Institute's effort

to foster serious thinking about urban policy. PRI hopes to

incubate good ideas that will improve our cities. It will feature

incisive reporting and opinionating on our new web page, and

in a series of webinars, research papers and books. If you

love cities and are brokenhearted by their current state, help

is on the way!