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.‬