Davis Kyle

No wonder he ran from reporters.

Canada’s global performance rankings are in freefall Is Canada actually doing better than Alabama? That’s the wrong question

New piece at the Hub! I drill into the numbers to show that GDP per capita is overstating Canada's quality of life, and a variety of other indicators show that we're falling behind our global peers... fast.

We're too complacent, and it's costing us.

“Not the ground beneath them”. Yes, the ground didn’t change, our understanding did Les!

It’s truly bizarre.

I don’t know.

People like order and design. Planned economies make intuitive sense to peoples as opposed to the chaos of a market.

We insist on carefully planned, boutique, local solutions instead of copying what works elsewhere. As you say, it’s frustrating.

Japan manages to have much less expensive housing while having much stronger earthquake codes. This is due to zoning and tax policy, for the most part.

Blaming unaffordable housing on earthquake codes seems to…be shortsighted.

Developer arguing that the Cascadia Subduction Zone is “theoretical”.

Should the codes include Kelowna? The interior? No.

Should they exist? Yes.

We Need To Investigate American Interference On The New Crisis Of Foreign Interference

"Canada’s response to foreign interference has never been a strong one, but the ambivalence of our political class to an explicit, public request for a foreign government help to break up our country is a new low."

scrimshawunscripted.substack.com/p/we-need-to...

They beat a blind refugee who speaks no English for failing to obey police commands he could not understand. Then instead of apologizing, they charged him with possession of a “weapon”—HIS WALKING STICK. Then they dumped him miles from home without notifying anyone, after which he was found dead.

Took a stroll in Millbridge park at lunch. One bench covered in garbage, another recently burned.

The costs of homelessness, besides the individuals not getting the help & treatment they need, are passed on in taxes and costs for business that are passed to consumers.

We need to stop reinventing the wheel we know how to build stacked, larger, family sized homes on a single lot. No need to get more creative, or overthink this. Just build what we always have. They’ll sell, they are beloved, they need to be allowed again

Municipal politics parties are where accountability and logic go to die, at least under false majority FPTP.

Spreading these sorts of baseless lies about your political opponents is a profound breach of the public trust.

ABC and Lenny Zhou seem happy to roll in the gutters of Trumpism.

Vancouver deserves better!

Interesting new paper on the cost of permitting. This is hard to measure, and these costs have long been thought to be significant. This paper confirms this, estimating permitting costs at roughly 30% of the wedge between construction cost and the price of housing.
(HT @michaelwiebe.bsky.social)

A person caught excessively speeding and facing basically zero consequences kept speeding? "Go figure" indeed!

(And why is 90 in a 50 not excessive??)

This is what we mean when we say road violence is predictable and preventable.

Exactly. The presumption should be on free market choice.

Underrated fact about Henry George is that he went from being very openly racist to actually pretty woke for the 19th century as he studied political economy & wrote P&P, essentially concluding that what appeared to be Darwinism in action was mostly a result economic conditions

This is why the anti-vax movement isn't about "parental choice" or indeed any choice at all. It's about ending the use of vaccines for everyone.

It’s not like they’re wrong about everything. Hardwick and TEAM were right about urban freeways. But we need to support good things and oppose bad things!

Somewhat! Thankfully that program was resurrected as a 2.0 form some years ago, but the group is very much on the ascent as we approach October 17th.

There are two types of environmentalism. Aesthetic, and actual.

Opposing infill housing and transit is not environmentalism. You can instead support transit, urban tree canopy, walkable neighbourhoods, infill, all as environmental policy.

It’s the difference between vibes & reality.

They insist that current industrial land be converted due to an alleged oversupply.

The real issue is that the yard is not even in the 10-year capital plan, that the current yard is maxed out, and that we have no plans for transit improvement but for some exchange upgrades.

Few things annoy me more than people who are clearly running for elected office in Kelowna who oppose a new public transit yard (our current one is at maximum capacity) on environmental grounds.

(Runoff, disturbance, noise, proximity to a pond)

driver yawning Conspiracy theorist relieved that proposed local amenities have been voted against and will now be a 30 min drive away.

"Conspiracy theorist relieved that proposed local amenities have been voted against and will now be a 30 min drive away."

@urbantruth.bsky.social

Important article on what could come to BC eventually, as it is already happening in California.

I’ve heard of high bills after the recent fires, but not many homes that are literally uninsurable.

What’s wild is that so many people ask for speed enforcement in school zones, etc, and yet we listen to the small minority of traffic NIMBYs who can’t imagine driving safely.

Policing is expensive. Automated enforcement is effective and cheap.

Oregon's state senate just voted to ban unfunded inclusionary zoning, recognizing that it makes housing *less* affordable, not more affordable.

The "Democrats will start another war in the Middle East" crowd are already gearing up to explain why THIS is different.

The fun part of vote splitting drama, even for council & mayoral elections, is that it could easily be fixed.

All the game theory, all the persona grievances that go along with it. Entirely forced by one of the dumbest electoral systems, used almost nowhere on the planet.

Plurality block FPTP.

Especially when we have the best tax and assessment authority on the continent.

Easy to look to Ontario and see how badly things can go.

Would’ve rathered a means-test just for expediency.

*Simple interest* discount rate property tax deferral was the wildest deal you could get

But I worry that without it the pressure to otherwise wreck the property tax or assessment system will grow