Alessandro Rigolon

Streetview with townhomes and bike lane

Gabbott's Row, one of the best recent residential projects in Salt Lake City. These townhomes should be the building block of our city, yet they're illegal to build on 80+% of our residential land.

sharks in water City hands out goggles, flippers and shark repellent yet still Swim To School Day not getting the numbers they hoped.

"City hands out goggles, flippers and shark repellent yet still Swim To School Day not getting the numbers they hoped."

Unfortunately true

Traffic on a stroad

“Those gosh darn bike lanes are causing this traffic,” a GOP state legislator in Utah, probably

It’s really hard to go 0-12 on sponsored bills if your party has a supermajority

Not-so-fun fact: this state legislator harassed me on Twitter 3 years ago over LGBTQ stuff, claiming that every professor at my university is trying to turn kids gay or trans. One of the reasons why I’m no longer there.

Couldn’t have happened to a worse legislator and, judging by his online behavior, person

I hate to be that guy, but promising over-compliance didn’t work. Mayor Mendenhall can say that SB 195 was worse than SB 242, but in both cases, UDOT takes over the design of arterial and collector streets in SLC

Wow: In the early vote, it's a blow-out *so far*.

Rodney Sadler, the progessive pastor and activist, leads state Representative Carla Cunningham 75% to 18%.

(Stay tuned as we see how the Election Day vote compares, but that's an ominous start for the incumbent.)

Context:

The term you’re looking for is “lived experiences” of fire marshals

I don't know Utah politics so well, and I don't know whether what she did today is good or not. I just don't feel represented when she welcomes the legislature taking over our city

YouTube video by Faded Paper Figures - Topic Red State

Today, as many other days, "I will be blue, in a red state."

SB 242, the Utah bill that takes over SLC's ability to design its own streets, passed the House Transportation Committee. It's a damn shame, and it's even more of a shame that Mayor Mendenhall spoke in support of it. This is because she likely fears retaliation from the Utah legislature.

YouTube video by ArcadeFireVEVO Arcade Fire - Arcade Fire presents Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) (Official Video)

Arcade Fire get it, too

"Sometimes, I wonder if the world's so small
That we can never get away from the sprawl
Living in the sprawl
Dead shopping malls rise like mountains beyond mountains
And there's no end in sight
I need the darkness; someone, please cut the lights!"

Costs of Sprawl | Reid Ewing, Shima Hamidi | Taylor & Francis eBooks, Across the nation, the debate over metropolitan sprawl and its impact has become pivotal to urban planning. A decade and a half ago, Smart Growth America

And shout out to my colleagues, Reid Ewing and Shima Hamidi, on this essential book on sprawl

America Should Sprawl? Not If We Want Strong Towns | Strong Towns The problem isn’t that we haven’t sprawled enough. It’s that sprawl creates fragile places instead of resilient ones.

I don't always agree with Strong Towns and Chuck Marohn (which is normal and healthy), but they're absolutely right on this issue. A key part of their argument is that suburbanization and car-dependency are making cities fiscally insolvent

How We Subsidize Suburbia Federal intervention—not the free market—made sprawl the way we live today.

The American Conservative realized this back in 2017, but federal, state, and local elected officials who claim to be fiscally conservative still don't get it.

Yeah it's one of the most factually incorrect dominant narratives you hear in local politics

Opinion | Donald the Dove, Hillary the Hawk (Published 2016)

A propos of what's occurred in the last few days

There's nothing fiscally conservative about sprawl. There's nothing "small government" about the costs of sprawl.

The 2026 midterms are here.

Primary elections are happening today in:

Texas
Arkansas
North Carolina

Vote.

Why wait to grow a spine after declaring that you won't seek re-election? I wish more rank-and-file Republicans were standing up to the lawlessness of this administration

I like Thom Tillis, but he came out fighting too late, and only after declaring he wouldn't run for re-election. For example, he voted to confirm Kristi Noem (knowing that she had killed a dog).

In related news, congestion pricing also seems to work in Oxford, England

Good urbanism news at a time when it seems that everything is falling apart

We have been at war with Eastasia

Are you referring to this? So disturbing

Agreed. Especially up north in BC, they'll sorely regret it

Oh, the Shit You’ll Do After You’re Tenured! We regret to inform you: Today’s not your day Though you’ve sweated and labored Every August through May You have brains in your head And a CV for ...

Whole mornings you’ll lose, and whole afternoons
To trolling and arguing with faceless buffoons
Like MAGABro69 and DixieBrunette —
You may even say a few things you regret.

But it’s okay!
You’ll be tenured!
And joy will abound
(Until the university itself closes down)

I'm calling for cities to stop using the term "Vision Zero". I'm done with all the talk to score political points and zero vision (pun intended) to actually save lives.