David King

He’s also the most transparent about why he thinks what he does, in my view. He explains what he’s reading, what he’s learning, and how that affects his thinking.

How Buildings Learn - Wikipedia

I like these because, despite the purpose staying the same, the building is meant to grow and adapt. All buildings should be viewed as in motion across time and not fixed. Stewart Brand's How Buildings Learn is a good resource on this idea, though not the same as buildings that are never finished.

The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine Discover The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine

The Cathedral of St John the Devine fits in this category, too.

After 144 years, world’s tallest church finally finishes exterior George Orwell once called Sagrada Família 'one of the most hideous buildings in the world.'

One of my more niche urbanism interests are buildings that are designed to never be finished, or at least take generations to build.

Speeding drops where Minneapolis put up cameras to catch lead-footed drivers The city rolled out five cameras in October. More could be added this year as well as cameras to catch red-light runners.

Gift link:

Tehran’s traffic cameras allowed Israel to track Khamenei, senior Iranian officials — report * * *

www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_ent...

TIL!!

My son made Tapped Out jokes for his calculus projects this year.

Regional words are fantastic.

Does the “Chicken Tax” encourage people to purchase larger trucks? The “Chicken Tax” is a 25 percent tariff on imported light-trucks that was first imposed in 1964, in response to tariffs levied by some European...

And related points about the chicken tax that protected American automakers with a 25% tariff on imported light trucks: er-trucks

How The 'Non-Passenger Work Vehicle' Became The Family Car - Jalopnik It all goes back to the early 1970s.

One set of explanations for why vehciels got so big:

This reminds me of the Onion joke "Charlize Theron hired to ride Struggling Cleveland Light Rail Monday through Friday."

On Feb. 12, 1969, Toronto tested out having "bus bunnies" to make public transit more attractive. The idea was proposed by the Canadian Urban Transportation Conference
The idea was only tested for one day before it was abandoned.

📸Toronto Star

The whole world is just Spider-Mans pointing at one another right now

After federal retreat, Twin Cities’ stores and restaurants piecing businesses back together Some restaurants in immigrant corridors are back to a full menu; others have reopened for a few days a week, and some businesses might consolidate some locations.

There are a lot of reported details about the harm the federal occupation did to Twin Cities’ businesses. Gift link.

Exclusive | Government Agencies Raise Alarm About Use of Elon Musk’s Grok Chatbot Warnings about xAI’s safety and reliability preceded the Pentagon’s decision to approve Grok for use in classified settings.

Between this and whatever is happening with Anthropic and the DoD it’s just a banner day for AI in the government all around. Gift link.

A resurgence of artists is brewing in Minneapolis' Warehouse District At the center of the potential post-pandemic rebound is the Kickernick Building and its new owner’s gallery.

The folks that bought it bought and redeveloped another warehouse building nearby:

Downtown Minneapolis’ historic Lumber Exchange building sells for $1 The new owner, who also bought the Kickernick Building in recent years, hopes to fill the struggling property with artists and creative businesses.

$1 bought the whole Lumber Exchange building in Minneapolis. Gift link.

Backbeats A Rolling Stone Best Music Book of 2025, this is an electrifying, “superb” (Atlantic), and “entirely fresh” (Rolling Stone) journey through the his...

I’m reading Backbeats, which is awesome, and enjoying going back and listening to the featured drummers in a new light and fresh ear. @johnlingan.bsky.social

literally DOZENS of jobs!

yeah, that's sort of where I think we're headed.

It also strikes me that all AI firms should oppose this. It undermines the credibility of AI models, really highlighting how biased they are (or can be). AI is to a degree a credence good, where users have to trust that the service is justified. There's a lot of credibility undermining elsewhere,too

That said, expanding taxi services should have always been part of any policy program to reduce drunk driving. Bars and restaurants used to keep numbers of favored cabbies. That was a sign of scarcity! I know this from experience in the bar business.

I agree with all of your points. A weakness of the studies of ridehail and DUIs is DUI enforcement is often set politically. Many of these studies (I don’t know the specific ones he cites) use a very short timeframe that can’t account for enforcement priorities.

I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it to anyone with interest in cities and the long history of planning them.

The fire department street width requirements are well known, and the FD objections to better streets is really problematic. We should require smaller fire trucks.

Phoenix to pay building owner $4M in damages from light rail work A jury says Phoenix must pay nearly $4 million in damages after taking a portion of a corporate office center’s parking lot to build the light rail.

Phoenix has to pay a property owner $4million as the city took 39 parking spaces to build light rail.

Every man, woman, and child gets $2000 as a refund.

ALA files plans to build K-12 charter school on CG outskirts CASA GRANDE — Public charter school group American Leadership Academy has submitted site and landscaping plans with Pinal County to build a K-12 school on about 190 acres at the

Eyeballing this plan looks like about half of the entire school site is parking lot.

Public transit has a chance to reinvent how people connect and get around Yet many, near and far, are watching to see which actions will move a new transit authority in the most effective direction.

This is a good piece about transit issues in Chicago, and I would say that even if I wasn't quoted in the story.