Matthew Lewis is ready for progressive federalism

You guys are trashing your credibility for no reason. We need a strong Strong Towns. Whatever personal beefs your ED has with YIMBYs, let him work those out on his own.

nimby posting by Kat Rosenfield

the thing about the Free Press types is that when you push them on their actual ideology, it's NIMBYism

Yeah I agree with this. I think LA DSA and the "tenants' rights movement" in California are all closeted fascists who hate immigrants and want more people to be homeless so they can do a neoliberalism/collect giant grants from billionaires.

We're on the same page!

I mean, a top "tenants' rights" attorney in LA -- also an LA DSA stalwart -- is Jacob Woocher, literally the son of Michael Weinstein's personal lawyer, who consults with top left-NIMBY orgs across the state (coincidentally, Jacob co-authored the fraudulent vacancy study funded by Weinstein/AHF!)

Inside the financial ties between a controversial housing nonprofit and Kevin de León As an incoming L.A. city council member in 2020, Kevin de León requested a meeting with city officials about their oversight of residential hotels owned by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. But he didn'...

Yep, pretty much. It's not unusual for leftists to not know this, so, don't feel stupid! Most leftists can't even look at information that refutes their priors. www.latimes.com/homeless-hou...

not sure if your font choice improves your point, but if it makes you feel good

Kevin de Leon was not only an employee of AIDS Healthcare Foundation while on the LA city council, he was hired by one of the leads for LA DSA, who was also a co-author on a fraudulent study of vacancies funded by AHF.

Philanthropy Needs to Pick a Side on the Housing Construction Debate Despite California’s severe housing shortage, foundations are still funding on the wrong side of the housing fight there, guest author Ned Resnikoff writes.

You can read all about it here: www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/philant...

The largest funder of NIMBYism in California, including the man who funds all the left NIMBYs in Los Angeles, is an avowed socialist. The second and third largest funders of NIMBYism in California are also far-left, and fund far-left groups.

Miami just elected its first democratic mayor in 28 years.

Mayor-elect Eileen Higgins calls herself “La Gringa” and rides transit.

Running on transit is a way to win elections!

In L.A., $750 a Month to Live in a Backyard Storage Unit

Incredible we built a society where tens of thousands of people are forced to live in this misery just because the wealthiest people in America want more parking and because left-NIMBY cranks still won't let go of their housing Lysenkoism which insists that new housing causes gentrification.

The first SB 79 battle LA has to pick which neighborhoods to let the law take effect in next July. Advocates are already drawing lines.

Did you know over a million new homes are at stake in the SB 79 implementation fight in LA over the next few months? I talked to two of the main players and wrote up a rundown of the abundant opportunities for City Councilmembers to play games and exempt favored neighborhoods.

ah i'm willing to bet there are ~ dozens of neurons at LADOT, just, none of them in the same meatsack so they never have the chance

False trade-off though -- a cost-cutting strategy should do both. It is far more costly to allow flooding and overflowing wastewater treatment facilities than to make that not happen. All the money comes from the same infrastructure pot.

once again, as always, gravel bikes ftw

Nuclear and Fossil Fuels Join Forces to Undermine Renewables The once unlikely alliance took root in Texas and now reaches right into the White House, where President Trump wants to ban wind energy projects.

I'm a huge fan of nuclear power but this is just some giant bullshit.

A coal power advocate is using the nuclear industry as cover for a resurgence of coal.

www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

cc @streetsforall.org

they can choose to pay for permeable surfaces or they can choose to lose their homeowners' insurance due to flood risk. I've just always assumed they wanted to be forced into these hard choices!

crumble around them.

Absolutely, 100% predictable. Modeled down to the linear foot. Warnings as far back as the 1920s.

We fucked around. Now we find out.

cars don't scale. They are a Ponzi scheme. The scheme is ending.

We get to live through it! It's actually going to suck for most of us. But I hope you'll at least join me in the twisted Gen X Schadenfreude of watching the absurd, car-dominated world they built -- and refuse to pay for --

There is certainly no way to have a functioning democracy in a country dominated by car culture.

But despite it all, no matter how unhinged and violent drivers get in public meetings, pavement still costs money -- money they will never agree to pay, money governments will never have --

Because

Of course, they won't tell you that. They'll talk out of both sides of their mouth, say things like "But I don't have any choice, I have to drive" and then cover your face in spittle while screaming about how bus lanes slow them down.

There is nothing rational, fair, or logical about drivers.

And if you want to have bags of burning dog shit thrown on your front steps and bomb threats called into your child's school, propose congestion pricing so drivers pay for value of roads, not just cost.

If money has any meaning at all, we can conclude with great certainty that drivers HATE DRIVING.

If you want to start WWIII, try raising gasoline prices 25 cents a gallon to pay for highways (which would only increase costs to most drivers by less than ~ $200 a year).

If you want violent drivers to literally threaten to kill you in a public meeting, try to charge $2 an hour for parking.

If an elected official asked me to pay another $1,000 a year that I knew would 100% go to making more/better bike lanes, fix broken sidewalks (and ideally, widen them by removing street parking) and increasing transit service/frequency, I'd be first in line!

But drivers?

Funny thing about carbrain/car culture that always pisses off violent drivers when you bring it up --

I walk, ride bikes, or take transit for ~ 95% of my trips; my annual transport costs are ~ $1500. And I love paying for it! I like voting for transit/bike lane bonds and bringing bikes to the shop.

if i were a human with a pulse, and also an elected member of LA City Council, I would simply do math and realize the only path to my city's solvency is to re-direct most of LADOT budget to sidewalks and bike transit lanes, and hardened infra to protect uncarred humans from violent drivers

We are in the early innings of people coming to grips with the real cost of building our cities almost exclusively for automobility

Complex highway interchange from the air

Never forget, car dependency isn’t freedom.

Some might ask “what’s more free than cars?”

Choices.

Choices are more free than car dependency.

It’s not a hard concept.

I’m not pitting cars against any other single mode of transport.

I’m rejecting design that creates dependency on just one mode.

- city leaders mandate carsprawl to degree previously unknown to humankind
- realize city revenues would never be anywhere close to sufficient to cover basic road maintenance costs
- nevertheless maintains traffic division staff dominated by carbrains
- nobody could have predicted what happens next

It seems Not Great that the bureaucracies in charge of California’s streets at ~every level of government are lawless rogue agencies that are not subject to any real public oversight.