Nathan Lauster

brass solidarity band performing “stand by me” in the streets of whittier next to alex pretti’s memorial. the crowd started chanting “the people united will never be defeated” so they incorporated it into the song. i love minneapolis

Small town Kimberley rallying in support for Greenland matches well their progressive history also rallying in support for zoning reform.

True story: we used their 2022 code for modelling possible results from BC's Small Scale Multi-Unit Housing legislation. news.gov.bc.ca/files/bc_SSM...

Chewed through Christmas light wires held by a gloved hand with blooming hazelnut in the background.

Tip to self for next December:

Don't put lights on the squirrels' favourite hazelnut tree.

Statement from Michael and Susan Pretti Parents of Alex Jeffrey Pretti “We are heartbroken but also very angry. Alex was a kindhearted soul who cared deeply for his family and friends and also the American veterans whom he cared for as an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital. Alex wanted to make a difference in this world. Unfortunately, he will not be with us to see his impact. I do not throw around the ‘hero’ term lightly. However, his last thought and act was to protect a woman. The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting. Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs. He had his phone in his right hand and his empty left hand is raised above his head while trying to protect the woman ICE just pushed down, all while being pepper sprayed. Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man. Thank you.

Kare 11 local news just read, in full, this statement from Michael and Susan Pretti, the parents of Alex Pretti.

"Please get the truth out about our son."

Super interesting peek at inheritance as a portion of property transfers in the US, amounting to 7% overall and 18% in pricey California by cotality data.

@jensvb.bsky.social and I saw some similar patterns in Canadian data looking at non-market transfers. homefreesociology.com/2021/08/13/c...

How grocery giants control who can sell food in your neighbourhood | CBC News Canada’s biggest grocery giants — including Loblaws, Sobeys and Metro — are using property law to control how other grocery stores, dollar stores, pharmacies and gas stations can compete with them, an...

Interesting look at property controls and anti-competitive practices in the grocery business (i.e. how commercial landlords attract anchor stores).

(housing scholar hint: Competition Bureau might also want to peek at municipal corporation property controls on housing!) www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Endorse.

Suggested friendly amendment one:

Expanded to also include "any pedestrian accompanying a child walking to school."

Suggested friendly amendment two:

Driving bans to be "issued via paintball gun."

Select metro area annual housing starts

With 2025 housing starts data in a quick check where select metro areas are at, and how that fits in historically. Montréal, Calgary, and Vancouver beat out Toronto for 2025 starts.
Live version: canviz.mountainmath.ca/plot?v=42127...

I met an absolutely lovely academic who asked whether my department back home is affected by ICE -- a question dramatizing how little info is getting out.

For the record, the small example I chose:

My dept has a carpool to pick up grad students of color who can't safely commute to campus alone.

Still a dual citizen, arriving to Vancouver by way of Minneapolis.

And as I suspected, making a call to oppose ICE funding to my particular US House Representative has proven unnecessary.

This represents my position quite well.

1911 Ad for Coquitlam real estate suggesting it "will be the industrial center of greater Vancouver" and "this means a population of perhaps 250,000 in a few years" alongside a figure showing actual population of Coquitlam and Port Coquitlam together (they were the same municipality in 1911) still approaching - but considerably below - 250,000 only now in 2021

1911 real estate advertisement from the Coquitlam Archives suggesting they'd see "a population of perhaps 250,000 in a few years" www.coquitlam.ca/760/Coquitla...

And... a short 115 years later, we're ALMOST there.

(Note: Coquitlam still contained PoCo in 1911, so it's only fair to include it!)

This is a pretty interesting corporate collision between City of Vancouver, CAPREIT, and Harrington Housing (hadn't heard of before).

There's a very real gap between short-term and long-term rentals that needs filling, but this looks like a really dodgy way of filling it.

Lessons from YIMBYism: Taking “Abundance” Back to Its Fundamentals Lessons from YIMBYism examines how supply-side reforms, public investment, and state capacity can make progressive social policy work as intended.

New from me: A brief for @rooseveltinstitute.org on the logic of YIMBY policymaking and its applicability to other domains. What principles underlying the YIMBY agenda are transferrable to thinking about energy, healthcare, and other areas? Short 🧵 to follow. rooseveltinstitute.org/publications...

Ok, but has anyone tried arguing that we need more towers around here so I can better gauge the precise thickness of the fog...?

Opinion | In Minneapolis, I Glimpsed a Civil War

"They have misjudged the ground beneath their feet: a state full of ordinary people — real estate agents, high school students, solar energy consultants — who’ve decided that watching their neighbors being dragged away is an intolerable sin."

(gift link)
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/19/o...

Nice shot!

But I'm pretty sure that's actually a portal to the next level on one of my kid's video games.

Well, I mean, if it worked for SNC-Lavilin...

Personally I'm more intrigued by the "king" of the ear-ring bandits bit...

'Morency, the engineering professor, is strongly supportive: “If you fly, you pay more if your luggage is too big,” she told me. “I don’t understand why cars are different.”'

While I don't usually go to airlines for moral clarity, I'm totally in agreement. Big SUVs should pay more.

Good piece!

The tabby came down from his day bed (benevolently shared with son at night) upstairs to see her off. The orange one was probably there when she left.

I suspect they only do this for me when they're trying to escape. But she holds a position of greater respect. Which, seriously, I get it.

Orange cat staring out the window, tabby in front of the door, watching for my partner's return.

Me: checking to see whether my partner headed out to pick up the kid.

Cats, helpfully: "yeah man, she just left."

TBH, I think that goes to Sharon's point. Some might think of it as a race between war abroad and civil war, but it seems just as likely they might happen at the same time - everything at once - with e.g. Canada getting drawn in no matter what we do up here.

Where Did All the American-Born Roofers Go?

Nuanced piece on transforming construction industry in US.

e.g. the contrast in the retired American-born roofer poetically describing how the work suited his soul, then several paragraphs down noting his broken back & pelvis after years of bad falls.

(gift link)
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/14/u...

I really want ppl w/o Minneapolis connections to understand

You might've heard that Mpls public schools went hybrid bc so many families are in hiding. Well, a coworker just told me that today, during his kid's hybrid class, a kid's apt building was raided onscreen

*Everyone has stories like this*

Please tell me that at least once you tried to pay for something with one of the jam jars...

Major Canadian rental housing landlord going private in $2.3 billion deal | Urbanized Minto Apartment Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) has agreed to be taken private in an all-cash deal valued at about $2.3 billion.

Looks like Minto REIT is going private, so no more public reports, e.g. www.mintoapartmentreit.com/annual-reports

These at least seemed pretty transparent about deriving their profit expectations from the "tailwinds" of "Canada’s structural housing supply shortage." dailyhive.com/vancouver/mi...

2 Native American-owned corporations cancel contracts with ICE | CBC News Last week, a second Native American-owned corporation announced it was severing a multi-million dollar contract with United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), after community pressure.

“We know our Indian reservations were the government’s first attempts at detention centres... We must ask ourselves why we would ever participate in something that mirrors the harm and trauma once done to our people."

Interesting reporting on corporate structures here.
www.cbc.ca/news/indigen...

CanViz - Canadian Data Visualization Tool Interactive data visualization tool for exploring and analyzing Statistics Canada data tables. Browse thousands of Canadian statistics, create custom plots, and download data in multiple formats.

Introducing CanViz, my little side project over the break to make StatCan tables more accessible.

NEW VIDEO: North America’s Elevator’s Problem

Elevators are absolutely essential to modern cities..... and it turns out North America kind of sucks at them. We partnered with @sightline.org to look into the many issues plaguing our elevator industry, and what it might take to fix it.

Big Bang Cider in Nanaimo could face massive tax hike after property reclassified | CBC News The owner of Big Bang Cidery in Nanaimo says a recent notice from B.C. Assessment has put his farm in a legal grey area that could increase his taxes significantly. However, the agency cites specific ...

I would say "Land Value Tax would solve this," but given exclusions for Agricultural Land are part of actual proposals like Commonwealth's (www.commonwealth.ca/bclvt), I'm not actually sure that's the case!

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...