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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.

On Portland’s newest bridge, there’s just one rule: no cars allowed. Other cities may follow the progressive city’s lead.
There are many questions that need to be answered before reducing Americans' beloved car space.
Why aren’t we creating great urban spaces anymore?
Are mayors' open-door policies for illegal immigrants hurting their efforts to raise wages?
Her intense focus on the minutia of the streets confuses cause and effect and virtually ignores infrastructure.
Riding the subway is a sign of a good life -- according to pop culture, anyway.
We don't always have to build up to fit more people into a city. Vancouver and Seattle offer alternative solutions.
Companies like Uber drive money out of local communities and erase the benefits that employees fought hard for. Co-ops could fix that.
The way a mid-sized city in Spain built a signature park holds many lessons.
Not that long ago, we hardly ever used or even knew the term. What changed?