Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦

The implication here that YIMBYs lined up behind him and not Chow is just not true: www.instagram.com/p/CtZRb85AkKf/

at this point I'm convinced Amtrak is sponsoring your trip as an ad for the train

I see what you did there

Opinion: Rolling back pro-density zoning restricts housing choice When we restrict housing choice, we're not preserving neighbourhood character: we're enforcing neighbourhood exclusion.

ICYMI, new op-ed from @jacobdawang.com: rolling back zoning reforms would be a mistake.

"That means more people priced out of mature neighbourhoods, gatekeeping Edmonton’s best neighbourhoods so that rowhouses look like single-family homes."

Read more 👇

edmontonjournal.com/opinion/colu...

#yegcc

I see what you did there

If I go to the one in SF, does that violate my Canadian citizenship oath 😶

Thanks for the concern! it was a bit of a shock at the moment but given the way I was struck and the (low) speed I was hit at, I mostly bounced off unharmed while my bike got bent pretty bad.

And yes, gaining more appreciation of Toronto/Canada with every single day!

As someone who was recently hit by a car in SF (fortunately I’m totally uninjured), it’s a lot of small things that add up.

Higher speed limits, more distracted and intoxicated driving, more uninsured driving (esp. for high risk drivers), and a culture that emphasizes compliance less.

No problem here. I was told that the right to bear arms exists specifically for standing up against tyrannical government actions like these. That will solve things very soon.

Zoning Bylaw Renewal: One Year Review

DEFEND ZONING BYLAW RENEWAL

Tomorrow, council's Urban Planning Committee will consider amendments to our zoning as part of its one-year review. The usual opposition is looking to roll back progress.

Please take 2 min and use our tool to email council 👇

www.growtogetheryeg.com/blog/zoning-...

Very significant for sure, though I think this isn’t as much of a transit doom story as we’d think at first.

SF is still able to fill up buses despite a huge Waymo fleet, and I regularly find Waymo being slower (and of course, pricier) than Muni at getting me places.

It’s doom for Ubers though.

Corktown commons?

If Liberals back someone who is unapologetic about opposing a ceasefire for an ongoing genocide, it's a pretty searing indictment of the moral clarity of centrists in Toronto.

And on top of that: Land Transfer Tax revenue is way down because people aren’t buying/selling homes as often.

The property tax increase was the only good option.

I'm just planting this flag now: if the entirety of your mayoral bid in 2026 is saying property tax increases were too high under Chow, you don't understand the operating budget and you're not fit to be mayor. COVID relief funding is gone, so property taxes have to cover the loss in transit revenue.

My bad

An example of the problems: Mike Layton and Adam Vaughan wanted to stop a Walmart on Bathurst near Kensington. So they initiated a planning study that
1. Didn't prevent a chain store in that property (it's a Winners and freshco)
2. Added a bunch of unrelated growth restrictions on Bathurst

Jacob’s analysis (which you should read!) is about Edmonton, but the same pattern repeats in a lot of places:

A theoretically-more-permissive zoning that then gets hampered by a litany of restrictions, each of which then necessitate site specific exceptions to get anything built

The California Model of Governance:

1. Create Regulation A
2. Problem A is side effect of Regulation A
3. Insist Regulation A is unrelated to Problem A
4. Create Regulation B to solve Problem A
5. Side effect of Regulation B is Problem B
6. A referendum stops you from solving either problem

If only the government that fully owns Conestoga College, the provincial government, felt the same effect 2 months ago 😶

California’s film industry thrived off of open access to world markets.

You’re just inviting retaliatory tariffs on California services here, which would absolutely wreck California (as they could also apply to tech).

Slight note: the shuttle is operated by the airport (and why Air Canada passengers can also take it). It just has ad wraps from Porter on it most of the time.

He gives Aurora’s mayor a run for his money on being the most NIMBY mayor in Ontario.

He was instrumental in getting Doug Ford to back away from province-level upzoning.

Also this argument fails a simple smell test? American cars are too large and heavy to fit in European / Japanese streets

GM doesn't make a single mass-market sedan anymore! Even the Chevy Malibu has been discontinued.

Trump’s Use of Immigration Law Appears to Conflict With Limits Imposed by Congress (Gift Article) A crackdown targeting foreign students protesting Israel’s treatment of Palestinians conflicts with free-speech protections that lawmakers added in 1990.

“The presence of ... economists skeptical of tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China, could all suddenly be considered adverse to U.S. foreign policy interests and subject to deportation based on the unilateral determination of the secretary of state,”

www.nytimes.com/2025/04/01/u...

BREAKING: “We will build at a pace not seen since the 2nd World War.” Mark Carney announces he wants to double the pace of housing construction in Canada, half a million new homes/year. He wants the Federal Govt to get back into affordable home-building. Billions in housing loans/grants announced.

I'm once again begging Americans to:

1) get more involved locally and improve their parties' brand locally first, and if that doesn't work:
2) try decoupling state/local/federal parties from each other, like other reasonable countries.

I don't blame Kamala's loss on her/Biden as much as I blame it on state and local Democrats running anti-abundance governments and letting outcomes in their cities get worse.

The only exception is Colorado, and hey, that's the only state that got bluer in 2024!

Trump’s Trade War Pushes Canadian Tech Workers to Rethink Silicon Valley Canada’s top tech talent has long moved to the US for better opportunities, but Donald Trump’s tariffs and threats are raising questions about how to build a stronger ecosystem at home.

Given all of that, it's especially funny to see Wired cite my op-ed from last summer about why talent is moving _to_ the US:
www.wired.com/story/canada...