MF

Graph with three sides, and a dot for each global city. Each side is for cars, public transit and active mobility. North American cities way down in the car corner…car dependent/dominated

STUDY: “The ABC of Mobility.”

Study of mode share (the % share of transportation trips that are by car, transit, walking, biking etc) relative to city size and income levels in almost 800 cities in 61 countries.

(check out those North American cities…yikes!)
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

yeah who is this? Name and shame

Quantifying the Cost of Sprawl In infrastructure, service delivery and tax receipts.

ICYMI: Suburban development costs 38% more in upfront public costs & 10% more in ongoing costs than compact development, PLUS has only 1/10th the tax revenue per acre, confirms report summarizing 17 studies. Via @smartgrowthusa.bsky.social

The blunt truth? Sprawl is heavily subsidized by ALL of us.

As Arlington booms, traffic drops Traffic on several Arlington roads is lower today than decades ago, despite huge increases in density and activity.

An oldie, but an important lesson: Arlington added 50,000 residents. Traffic fell.

Wilson Blvd (its main street): –23%.
Transit ridership: +34%.

When you build housing around transit, people drive less. @ggwash.org

ggwash.org/view/35122/a...

Yeah he disavowed after he was outed, but he was 28 when he was writing for nazi blogs, it wasn’t like a teenage phase, and he still periodically posts skull-measuring race pseudo-science or outright racist remarks

“No one from the lending community is driving [decisions on parking provision]. It’s all driven by the tenant or client.”

– Developer (all product types); Indianapolis

www.mpactmobility.org/wp-content/u...

This is risible nonsense

and this was done with a minority in both chambers, when all of mitch's supposed genius had a GOP majority in the House to play off of (and his most notorious shit was when he was majority leader)

extremely cool. 1100 was the breakdown point for me. obligatory link to one of my other favorite puzzlers, The Water Margin rendered in Scots. www.scottishcorpus.ac.uk/document/?do...

But actually — it's insane that Sacramento has a **98.5% on-time housing plan review rate** and it's not even a story because the city is already assumed to be so frictionless!

Meanwhile Daniel Lurie's SF gets big news stories for rates like this:

all three of the stories are quite fun. Excited for future seasons of the show

YouTube video by antzilla525 The Academic Debate re: Zoning Reform in High-Cost Regions

By popular demand, I have posted the "The Academic Debate re: Zoning Reform in High-Cost Regions" Ace Attorney spoof video that @dereksagehorn.bsky.social and I made years ago.

Enjoy!

youtu.be/rflVw8SGj8Y

A chart showing traffic tickets issued in San Francisco, with a sharp drop that began in 2014, hit bottom in 2022 when just a few tickets were issued, and has now rebounded almost to 2014 levels.

We’re back, baby!

Locations of new homes built in Switzerland in 2018

Country-wide effects of new housing supply: Evidence from moving chains, by Lukas Hauck and Frederic Kluser

Another new paper on housebuilding and vacancy chains, this time with data on every Swiss resident & housing unit! An interesting context given Switzerland's high immigration, very large rented sector and strong tenancy rent controls... frederickluser.github.io/files/Moving...

Isn't she a left-nimby herself?

Great analysis here from @edmendoza.bsky.social & @pewresearch.org correcting a poorly framed Georgetown report

New housing construction moderates Class C rents the most!

<60%AMI families will always need income supports

But YIMBYism helps all incomes
www.metroabundance.org/adding-more-...

New literature review post!

I discuss research showing what happens to housing prices, rents, and displacement when demand increases faster than supply, and what happens when supply is allowed to keep up.

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S.F. driver accused of killing family of 4 in West Portal crash likely to avoid prison time The woman prosecutors said killed a family of four after ramming into a bus stop with her car in San Francisco’s West Portal neighborhood will avoid jail time after changing her plea in court.

This woman killed an entire family — mom, dad, and 2 kids. She will get no jail time, and will not lose her license. When you're a driver, you can kill with total impunity.

www.sfchronicle.com/crime/articl...

Still gobsmacked by this Sacramento Planning Commission meeting. 300 unit project. Tons of public support. Commissioners said state law required them to approve, but that they’d support it regardless. All agreed they’d prefer less parking. 10-0 vote to support. Done in 2 hours. Magical.

7-Year-Old Migrant Girl Dies Of Dehydration And Shock In U.S. Border Patrol Custody The girl's death underscores the crisis precipitated by large groups of families seeking asylum where there are inadequate facilities to detain them.

CBP didn’t give her or anyone any water; she asked 3 times accg to other reports. CBP killed a 7yr old.

“8 hours after the girl & her father were taken into custody, she began having seizures & her body temperature was measured at 105.7 degrees by emergency medical technicians. shorturl.at/d2OTJ

Sacramento needs more condos To fix the housing crisis, close the gap between rental apartments and single-family homes

Condos are the dog that doesn’t bark in California housing. My article on how enabling middle-class homeownership requires fixing the multifamily for-sale market: housesac.substack.com/p/sacramento... @sacyimby.bsky.social @cayimby.bsky.social @muhammadspeaks.bsky.social

its interesting, that line and the 'hedge knight' were published 1998, same as first few ASOIAF books.
I'd argue that for 1998 Game of Thrones was more subversive for fantasy novels, but after 25 years of gritty reboots, grimdark feels very tired, and I'd agree the earnestness is a nice change

and how many people do you have to house to reduce PIT homelessness by 1 individual? Because it ain't 1:1 bud

You can't even bring yourself to read the link? it is pretty short blog post bud.

How many people do you have to house to reduce PIT homelessness by one individual?

No, there are not 28 vacant homes for every homeless person The claim rests of two wildly misleading statistics

Look up what a census-defined "vacant unit of housing" is, and then walk me through a legal takings analysis of the government seizing vacation homes to house the unhoused.
housingmyths.substack.com/p/no-there-a...

No, there are not 28 vacant homes for every homeless person The claim rests of two wildly misleading statistics

I implore you to do some basic reading on the topic

housingmyths.substack.com/p/no-there-a...

what is the case study or evidence for this? Because again, you look at decades of evidence from Chicago and the only difference is they have 50 smaller fiefdoms taking smaller bribes.

I’d love to see charter reform to give a lot of city council’s powers to the mayor (esp remove council from planning/development approvals), but that doesn’t seem to be the direction the current charter reform effort is going.

I’m fine with multi member district and ranked choice. but what problem does more council members solve?
Chicago has 50 aldermen and largely the same problems as LA. How is a city council with 35 useless nimbys better than our current one with 8-10ish useless nimbys?

Missoula, Montana has just:

- Eliminated single family zoning
- Eliminated parking requirements citywide
- Allows 100-125' of height in many of its mixed-use zones with no limits on density or FAR

Why is Missoula so much more progressive than Los Angeles?