Year 1 data on congestion pricing in Manhattan… * Vehicle traffic: -11% * Foot traffic: +3.4% * Storefront vacancy: -0.9% * Pollution: -22% * Revenue for mass transit: $548M So YES this has been a huge success.

Too many managers take a hands-off approach, and then get frustrated when things go awry. There is a better way on.wsj.com/44rnncT

"While the Chinese state endeavors to institute the Party’s leadership in all aspects of the society, it has failed in its urban neighborhoods where hundreds of millions of middle-class homeowners, who are backbone of the regime, live." papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/...

"In the case that the primary purpose was to support the local car manufacturing industry, the compensation took the form of subsidizing taxi drivers to replace their old cars with electronic vehicles (“EVs”) manufactured locally." papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

The Democratic Party’s winners this week “arguably got more out of affordability than any other approach,” @dkthomp.bsky.social argues. A party that adopts that approach at the national level “is in a strong position going into 2026”: https://theatln.tc/DJXBANTH

Hard to believe this video interview—where I discuss real estate law and politics in China—has been viewed over 583,000 times in just two months. Two parents of my daughter’s school friends even sent me screenshots of it… www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko25...

"Techno-wizardry on one side and struggling villages on the other conveys valuable yet only partially accurate pictures of a complex country." #PIPFellow @kennedychina.bsky.social and Scott Rozelle discuss China's tech rise for @foreignpolicy.com:#PIPFellow https://bit.ly/47kgElN

No one in America likes their HOA. However, according to @shitongqiao.bsky.social, HOAs are an important site of actually existing democracy in China that depend on a strong state while potentially threatening it. Alice Liu asks him how this could be. open.substack.com/pub/uscnpm/p...

Interesting. A similar trend has been happening to their Chinese offices too... Seems that something more fundamental about the U.S. legal market is going on.

It's out! "Recognition Rules: The Case for a New International Law of Government Recognition" Published in @nyulawreview.bsky.social, with coauthors Justin Cole and Alaa Hachem. You can download it for free here: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

@ncuscr.bsky.social is delighted to announce the twenty fellows who make up the ninth cohort of our Public Intellectuals Program. Learn more about the newest #PIPFellows: www.ncuscr.org/twenty-leadi...

Even in the rarefied world of luxury real estate, professional hockey player-turned-waste management billionaire Patrick Dovigi stands out for his ability to write big checks and trade multimillion-dollar homes like chess pieces.

“Our politics revolve around the idea that scarce resources mean keeping people out. We are utterly unprepared for a world in which perhaps the scarcest resource will be people.” www.nytimes.com/2025/01/31/o...

In a letter drawn from a posthumous collection of correspondence, published in 2019, the neurologist Oliver Sacks argued that society had no immunity to the seductions of digital life. “What we are seeing—and bringing on ourselves—resembles a neurological catastrophe on a gigantic scale,” he wrote.

Being the top-ranked golfer in the world comes with a lot of expectations, but Scottie Scheffler revealed Tuesday there was one place where that weight became unbearable: his Venmo account. More ⤵️ www.nytimes.com/athletic/641...

Grateful to Jed (Purdy!) and The LPE Blog for this book interview, including a critique and response regarding the relationship between property and democracy. lpeproject.org/blog/the-aut...

Happy to chair the selection committee. Please spread the news!

Homeowners' associations sound pretty cool, at least in China! Very grateful for this deeply engaging conversation with Prof. Rick Hills about my new book: www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpun....

Junior faculty in law and STEM fields -- Call for Papers Eighth Junior Faculty Forum on Law and STEM Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, September 26-27, 2025 Electronic submissions should be made here: web.cvent.com/event/80992b.... The deadline for submissions is June 3, 2025.

Nervous and excited about my book talks at Duke, the American Bar Foundation, Chicago, Columbia, McGill, NYU, Penn, Stanford, and Yale. If you’re not in any of these places, you can join online via the Harvard-MIT Urban China Series. Hope to see some of you there!

The Authoritarian Commons by Shitong Qiao "Documents and insightfully analyzes how the development of homeowners’ associations (HoAs) in China generated an ongoing democratic revolution in hundreds of thousands of neighborhoods." Out Now #LawSky

Chicago landlord ordered to pay $80,000 for threatening to call ICE on tenants

YIMBYism is not just Truth and Justice but also the American Way, as @profschleich.bsky.social and I argue here.

Another title for the paper we considered was "The Origin of Communities in Authoritarian Cities"...

New #BookReview forum discussing "For a Liberatory Politics of Home" featuring an author response from Michele Lancione https://buff.ly/4kdbeyH @colinmcfarlane.bsky.social @kbrickell.bsky.social @erinmcel.bsky.social @saanchi.bsky.social @dukepress.bsky.social

Thrilled to see my book The Authoritarian Commons featured alongside the amazing works of my Duke colleagues. It’s inspiring to be part of such a vibrant and productive academic community!

"With its prevalent focus on formal institutions and norms in constitutional orders, the comparative turn may unwittingly limit studies of the constitutional phenomenon."

"The 1925 Act substituted discretionary writs of certiorari for a large proportion of these mandatory appeals, thus allowing the Court to determine the nature of its own docket."

“Morgan Lewis now becomes the 16th U.S. firm to shutter an office in mainland China since the exodus began in 2024.” abovethelaw.com/2025/01/yet-...

"a new notion of "legal revivals" and carefully delimits them from legal transplants, on the one hand, and legal survivals, on the other. One of the characteristic features of legal revivals is the use of the resources of legal history for the purposes of contemporary legal innovation."

If the United States gets a 50% ownership in Tik Tok, is that like a public utility? #Satire #Trolling

Just a reminder, folks, that Donald Trump was for the TikTok ban before he was against it.

"corporate interests either commandeer our formal institutions of governance or displace their typical role in structuring public life."

The Harvard Business Law Review is sponsoring a one-day symposium on the new Restatement of Consumer Contracts on Saturday, January 25, 9am – 4pm, at Harvard Law School. By reading this post, you agree to attend and to be bound by terms. lawprofessors.typepad.com/contractspro...

Very impressive piece of work by the Bloomberg data team on congestion pricing in NYC - headline is that private vehicles are down by about 6 percentage points, commercial vehicles unchanged, yellow cabs main beneficiaries www.bloomberg.com/graphics/202...

Just finished reading/listening to Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union. It highlights the importance of state capacity and craftsmanship in democratic transitions—something my new book, The Authoritarian Commons, explores in a very different context.

Wilkinson‐Ryan, Hoffman, & Campbell on Contract Experiences of Ordinary Folk, https://buff.ly/4gTem0i - Tess Wilkinson‐Ryan (University of Pennsylvania), David A. Hoffman (University of Pennsylvania), & Emily Campbell (University of Pennsylvania) have posted Contracts for Everyone on SSRN.

Over 80% “of venture and private equity deals in China contain redemption provisions. They typically require companies, and often their founders as well, to buy back investors’ shares plus interest if targets such as …valuation goals or revenue metrics are not met.” www.ft.com/content/38f1...

Listening to NPR’s coverage of Jimmy Carter’s state funeral reminds me of David Brooks’ The Road to Character.