Andrew Damitio

Agree with removing the need for a permit for sandwich board (while keeping the rules around their placement)... but Portland should take a bigger look at its sign code in general.

Every cool sign that gets photographed would be illegal to build today.

The last smelter in the PNW was in Ferndale.

Shut down during the pandemic, wasn't able to reopen in 2022 because there wasn't enough clean power to do it.

In the 1960s, aluminum smelters in the PNW used enough energy to power 2023 Seattle three times over.

www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

I am not so sure.

Look at the electrical demands of aluminum smelters, which used to be king in the Pacific Northwest.

Most of the US's plateau in electrical demand on the 2000s-10s was just de-industrialization. Industry uses a lot of energy!

The limits on data center growth are the same limits that new manufacturing faces. The only difference being that manufacturing has far worse externalities.

If the US can't bring ourselves to build data centers, we sure as heck won't be able to compete with China in industrial production.

And thank you so much for linking that report!

Yes, and from what I have seen, it appears to be a modest success!

$10m in funds per biennium or so, and it's done fuels reduction treatment on thousands of acres, whilst training young workers.

But the 1930s mass movement CCC only worked because participation wasn't entirely voluntary.

Why We Can't Revive the Civilian Conservation Corps Only Depression-era desperation and destitution made the CCC possible to implement.

New blog post.

Growing up in rural Oregon, I was surrounded by Civilian Conservation Corps roads, trails, and campgrounds.

Given the program's overwhelming success and popularity, why was it never revived?

open.substack.com/pub/andrewda...

The lack of new generation capacity is the "pox."

The data centers aren't the problem.

Most of Eastern Oregon is Federal land, harder to permit on.

The map also puts DG solar installs as the same sized "dot" as large projects.

Most of rural Oregon is cool and therefore not eligible for the 1-5 MW community solar that makes up so many of those dots.

SOE, with a professionally appointed CEO. No elected positions or board. The state or relevant subnational entity funding it exerts control through the budget: if there is a dedicated source of funds, like the Ile-de-France payroll tax, then it is broad and can be changed by the elected government.

An underrated factor in "why don't people in wealthy societies have more kids" is changing societal norms that now expect even older kids to be chaperoned by an adult any time they are in public, and to be chauffeured by a parent as their only means of transportation

this is why I think publications that focus almost solely on culture war issues are so empty. The genuine economic, health, welfare etc impacts of policy are much more important than Ivy League coursework discourse but become sideshows to these people.

This is a very weird way for you to respond to a profile piece on a colleague.

The piece was not derogatory towards you or anybody else, so I don't know why you're being derogatory.

Perhaps you should step away from the phone?

I'd put decent money on tenant protections being one of the reasons.

Tenant protections make it pretty difficult to kick out troublemakers, and why would anybody live in an "affordable" complex where troublemaking neighbors cluster yet can't get kicked out except for extreme cause?

I think the opposite is the case.

That article highlights how dedicated "affordable" housing developers are extremely inefficient and cannot survive once market rate housing even approaches competition with them.

We should be redirecting subsidy towards supportive housing instead.

Thank you!

Can any of you connect me with housing policy analysts/developers based in Canada?

I have questions for them regarding Canadan condo construction financing.

what drives me insane about “centers and corridors” in US urban planning is that seemingly no professionals in the field have stopped and realized that this “best practice” has not worked anywhere it’s been tried

Citizenportal is an AI summary of a recorded public meeting it listens to, so it's fairly close to primary source, but it can sometimes get names wrong because it misunderstands pronunciations.

Very much a "trust but verify" source.

There's no single tweak like "remove parking minimums" or "legalize single stair egress" that will allow for the dense traditional mid-rise developments Americans love to see.

We need a comprehensive rewrite of building codes to simplify them, match international peers, and allow traditional devt.

Under Portland's new single-stair laws (which only go to 4 stories, there's a maximum of 4 units per-floor, making that design impossible.

Also there's a 4k sq/ft limit per floor, meaning the city's 5K sq/ft lots can't be built corner-to-corner, even w/o setbacks.

www.portland.gov/ppd/codes-ru...

People love blaming parking minimums as to why the US doesn't build like this.

It's more complicated.

The lot couldn't be utilized corner-to-corner due to setbacks.

The project wouldn't pencil due to space lost for the large elevator, dual stairwells, and wide hallway to meet building codes.

Outstanding news.

Capacity building at Sound Transit 18 primes 248 subconsultants [large chart showing which consultants and subconsultants the agency is bringing on]

I keep going back to this slide shown to the Sound Transit board this month, showing how "capacity building" means consulting firms, more consulting firms, and more subcontractors.

Just look at this appeal by Providence Park to the Oregon Plumbing Board of Appeals from 2014.

They had to submit bathroom cleaning schedules to try to win the appeal.

www.portlandoregon.gov/bds/appeals/...

google maps screenshot of portland with the marquam bridge and the east side waterfront freeway edited out

take out the marquam and you can unwind the entire east side waterfront freeway. such a huge part of our post-freeway future

The Oregon plumbing code has a thing against trough urinals, so any high capacity restrooms will need a variance...

Reading the replies, I don't think your question has been answered...