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Alex Marshall

Alex Marshall

Columnist

A journalist and consultant, Alex Marshall is the author of The Surprising Design of Market Economies; Beneath the Metropolis: The Secret Lives of Cities; and How Cities Work: Suburbs, Sprawl and the Roads Not Taken. He writes a regular urban affairs/infrastructure column for Governing and has contributed to Bloomberg Voice, Metropolis, The New York Times, Architecture, The Boston Globe, The New York Daily News, The Washington Post and many other publications.

Marshall has taught about infrastructure at the New Jersey School of Architecture at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark. From 2002 to 2018 Marshall was a Senior Fellow at the Regional Plan Association in New York City. In 1999-2000, he was a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. He has consulted with Arup, Sidewalk Labs and other organizations. He holds a master's degree from Columbia University’s journalism school and a bachelor's in Political Economy and Spanish from Carnegie Mellon University. A native of Norfolk, Va., he was a staff writer and columnist for The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk from 1989 to 1999.

He can be reached at amcities@gmail.com or on Twitter at @Amcities.

Almost no one disputes the need for America to repair and expand its physical infrastructure. But there’s a right way to do it, and there’s a wrong way.
The attacks on the U.S. Capitol building early this month are an important reminder of why great Americans, from Thomas Jefferson to Daniel Patrick Moynihan, see architecture as a crucial component of our system of government.
When you zip into a space and don’t pay for it, somebody is still footing the bill. It’s not just somebody else – it’s you. You’re paying for the traffic jams and pollution you’re getting stuck with.
There’s a highway rest stop at Smyrna, Del., that’s so big and luxurious people get married there. How did that happen and what does it say about America’s tax-supported transportation priorities?
This election year, in New York City and elsewhere, early and mail-in voting have altered the voting landscape. Still, making a sacrifice to cast a ballot is one reminder of our continuing commitment to democracy.
The death of a Google sister company's ambitious plan to develop an empty piece of the Canadian city's waterfront has lessons for what other cities should do when a big corporation comes calling.
Cities have had a lot of problems in recent months, but the Trump campaign's focus on those short-term issues ignores the reality that over the longer term they have become safer, cleaner and richer.
It can solve problems, but it also can address our communities' hopes and ambitions. Our urban endeavors always have a utopian edge to them, even if things don't always work out well.
Our municipal police departments were born amid waves of civil disorder, and their mission and practices have always been disputed. This isn't the first time reform has been in the air.
We assume that squishing people together on subways and buses, along with urban density in general, accounts for much of the virus's spread. But when you look at the evidence, it's a blurred picture.