Jason Cox

Tiny homes are aesthetic RVs and we need to stop pretending this is a solution and instead realize it’s a raging, five alarm symptom.

You’re forcing people into depreciating structures because we are more amenable to building parking lots than housing, and highways than infill.

Should have moved faster on Greenland.

For fire departments safety is almost exclusively measured in speed of response.

Which makes pushback against alternatives like the below seem foolish.

Smaller turntable ladders are:
-more nimble
-fit in tighter spaces
-set up faster

It’s only failing? It’s not 47’ long.

Ironic that tariffs on that product started this whole experiment

start by taking 1 or 2 lanes out of every street with 6 or more lanes, which would cover a surprising amount of downtown. boom, decades of maintenance gone. then make a policy that no roads over 25mph can have sidewalks next to moving traffic, and add planted buffers where it's over the limit.

Forget Canada take over South America and now we don’t even have an immigration problem

So how long is it gonna take to scale up coffee, banana, pineapple and mango plantations?

20% of all urban residential lots could be converted to missing middle & it would;

1) have no real impact on the surrounding neighborhood’s quality of life

2) be hugely impactful to housing supply where people want to live

3) reduce traffic congestion

With zero govt subsidy.

Schrödinger's economy:
Existing in a superposition of both collecting massive tariff revenues but also reshoring long dead industries with nonexistent workers.

Overturn. Citizens. United.

(This would be true regardless of the colors on the graph, I’ve been consistent on this forever.)

Trade wars. Short and easy to win (a recession)

To be continued…

Next up: Infill And The Goldilocks Of Density

that’s been wiggling in the back of their mind incessantly.

You’re going to be landlord, business advisor, coach and city-permitting advocate. It’s messy, because you’re assembling your starting bench of players in building a dynasty. Lean into it.

Accept that you aren’t engaging in true commercial leasing at this point.

Those calling aren’t likely to be experienced business owners. This isn’t their 2nd or 3rd location.

They’re a true believer who has seen what’s happening and they want to try their hand at this idea

This also means making trade offs.

Taking lesser starting rent, giving more flexible initial lease terms to the quirky coffee shop & creperie, the record store-slash-bar, the weird ramen and pizza concept.

No one gets excited about driving 20 minutes for a chain sub shop.

Take the pain (and cost) of making key upfits high quality where it counts.

You want people to come into that new restaurant or bar and be surprised. To say “it doesn’t feel like I’m in {insert place name here}.

They are here. It’s just here means something different now.

Phase II: Build Businesses Good Starter Homes

Create pop up space so people can try an idea to get market feedback before jumping all in.

Renovate buildings to a historic white box. New electric, plumbing, HVAC. People should spend money on their business, not an old building.

Get murals on walls. Good ones. Avoid nostalgia, favor forward-looking.

Get creative on threading the needle on ordinances.

Can’t paint brick in historic district? Standoffs & a backer are canvases that can be removed, reinstalled.

Rules on signs? Make it art. Rules on murals? Make them signs.

Start by putting murals and the arts front and center in each project.

Make a gutted building just safe enough to get an inspector to approve one-off events.

Suddenly there’s a neon-lit art show with a DJ and people dancing in the raised storefront of a former shoe store.

with nearby corridors full of auto garages, boat repair shops, used car lots and other small industrial to have sufficient scale to work with. We’re building a city for itself, not a tourist village.

There are more requirements but for now read on.

with nearby corridors full of auto garages, boat repair shops, used car lots and other small industrial to have sufficient scale to work with. We’re building a city for itself, not a tourist village.

There are more requirements but for now read on.

-Existing Demand: Large enough catchment basin of existing population & dining dollars, disposable income that’s currently leaking to larger surrounding town(s).

-Sufficient Fabric: A downtown with enough existing buildings and a true grid, adjacent to Pre WWII neighborhoods

Revitalizing a Small Southeastern Downtown, a working primer.

1st, The Req’ts:
-Accessibility: <40 minutes from 1 or more larger metros.

-Growth: Metro must have strong growth, creating pricing pressure for both residents & companies.

Wild how all these other with tall buildings haven’t had these scaffold shed requirements and are fine

Step 1: Make stupid land use decisions.

Step 2: Complain things suck.

Step 3: Make more stupid land use decisions.

Step 4: Things suck more.

Step 5: Make more stupid land use decisions.

Step 6: Suck increases.

Step 7: Make more stupid land use decisions.

Bill would also allow schools in all commercial zones via special use permit which is interesting.

Possible winding path to smaller, more urban schools. Unfortunately that would be almost exclusively charter schools rather than public at this point in NC.

Another big one I missed is SB 493 which would eliminate ETJ authority in NC.

ETJs encourage endless sprawl, which is part of what prevents better infill. NC League of Cities is going to fight this and the rest hard.

Finally gonna get some use out of these things.

Statewide legislation proposed in North Carolina for:
-missing middle to six homes in single family zoning
-housing allowed in all zoning types
-ADUs by right

And the one I’ve been waiting for:
SINGLE. STAIR. BUILDINGS.

I thought the Sec of DoD said the conversation never happened. Weird