dan, crisp & juicy enjoyer 🦀🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️👋🏾

I feel like a broken record saying this but the Montgomery County Department of Transportation must do better, and here is another example why

it certainly feels like that sometimes. Montgomery County higher-ups (many of whom are Xers or boomers) either 1) obsess over what Virginia's doing or 2) claim that any improvement will cause gentrification, both of which ignore the reality that people can and will just move to DC

Will Jawando Get the Apple Ballot? - Montgomery Perspective By Adam Pagnucco. With the retreat of the Washington Post editorial board from local affairs, the most prominent endorsement in MoCo politics belongs to the...

like white smoke over the vatican, montgomery county’s political class is waiting to hear who will get the teachers union’s coveted apple ballot endorsement. as they decide, @adampagnucco.bsky.social has tea
montgomeryperspective.com/2025/12/03/w...

Montgomery County is known for a high level of public services, but that requires tax revenue—and if the county isn’t attracting new people and businesses (or retaining them!) we can’t support the services people want and need. closing schools, cutting library hours…what’s next?

10 County Libraries to Close Sundays Starting Jan. 11 Ten Montgomery County Public Libraries will be closed on Sundays starting Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, according to MCPL.

housing shortage ➡️ rising prices ➡️ middle class leaving the county ➡️ stagnant economy ➡️ budget issues ➡️ most Montgomery County libraries will now close on Sundays www.mymcmedia.org/10-county-li...

congratulations to @natalifg.bsky.social and @mbalcombe.bsky.social for becoming Montgomery County Council president and vice president for the next year! I'm grateful that their colleagues chose forward-looking leadership and look forward to working with both of them over the coming months

How a 1940 electoral system reform in Cambridge made its 2025 housing breakthrough possible   - CommonWealth Beacon This is more than just a housing “win.” It’s a triumph for Cambridge’s unique brand of representative democracy—one that balances citywide priorities with fair representation for diverse communities.

I strongly recommend this article.
I can speak from deep personal experience in Cambridge & in a district/at-large county. The Cambridge system promotes participation by minorities of all kinds. District voting unfairly empowers geographic minorities. commonwealthbeacon.org/opinion/how-...

it’s notable that Arlington and Alexandria both passed missing middle zoning reforms *and* have an all at-large council/board—but like Cambridge they’re fairly small. each district in MoCo is bigger than Cambridge, which is to say, our councilmembers could be more parochial

it’s been six months after a driver hit me and my dog—and six months of fighting @mcdotnow.bsky.social to do their job. I just wanted a crosswalk, a stop sign, and speed bumps. who knew it would be this complicated and absurd

our civic association is holding meeting about putting in speed bumps on the street where a driver hit me and my dog—as required by Montgomery County law—and @mcdotnow.bsky.social put my *personal blog that I haven’t updated in 4 years* as the contact. I don’t understand how this happened

it reminds me of freshman year at UMD when the RAs put a list of “nearby malls” in the dorm stairwell (I guess for out-of-state students) which included Tysons Corner Center but not PG Plaza or Beltway Plaza, which were both 5 minutes from campus 🤦‍♀️

Philanthropy Needs to Pick a Side on the Housing Construction Debate Despite California’s severe housing shortage, foundations are still funding on the wrong side of the housing fight there, guest author Ned Resnikoff writes.

Still thinking about this article. It’s always been a sore spot in YIMBY circles that so many progressive foundations pour money into NIMBYism, and I’m glad it’s finally being aired in public. Keep talking about it. www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/philant...

What happens when you downzone?

Our new open-access research paper in @findingspress.org investigates effects of decades of downzoning in Chicago.

Findings:
—Downzoned areas added 1/7th of the new units as comparable non-downzoned areas;
—Downzoned areas became more white & were more expensive.

everybody and everything has a creation story and these are some of ours

so many of my friends have left Montgomery County not just bc of the high housing costs, but the quality of housing. the less we build, the older it gets. and you can’t just “buy an old house and fix it up” if those are prohibitively expensive too. so people leave

I grew up in this building and can still hear my mother screaming every time she found a “visitor” in our apartment. @acornpark.bsky.social and I talk a lot about how MoCo’s reluctance to stand up to NIMBYs means even folks with a little money get stuck in substandard housing

Fleetwood Mac 's "Silver Springs" is a trending sound right now at least on Insta, and people are using it for ... their wedding videos and getting brunch with friends.

they hear "you won't forget me" and go "awww 🥹"

🫠 You don't even need to know the background, just actually listen to the song

screenshot of a news article with the headline “Annapolis gears up to build bike trail to connect city, county and region.” beneath it is a photo of a man with his arms out next to a big sign that says “outer and inner wee: the west east express trail”

i’m sorry they did not call this the “wee trail” that cannot be what this is called www.capitalgazette.com/2025/11/21/a...

What was I gonna do, NOT write about the rat video???

New episode. @bnhowe.bsky.social @ricktagious.bsky.social @jamiedemarco.bsky.social
@justupthepike.bsky.social @karalevchenko.bsky.social linktr.ee/ihppod @sunildasgupta.bsky.social

Posts by Natalie Wexler Natalie Wexler is a DC education journalist and blogger. She chairs the board of The Writing Revolution and serves on the Urban Teachers DC Regional Leadership Council, and she has been a volunteer re...

I used to know Natalie! she was a contributor for @ggwash.org during our brief foray into education coverage in the 2010s ggwash.org/contributors...

@caseybanderson.bsky.social, a person who knows from public meetings, issues this treatise on why public meetings don't work and how they can work better

Longley called attention to the damaging of a go-foot rope borrowed for the purpose of removing the stone crusher from the cars and recommended that an appropriation of $50o be made for the purchase of said rope, about sixty feet of it being in good condition andsuch a rope being a necessity to the town. On mohon of Mr. Platt the appropriation of $500 for the purchase of such rope was duthorized,

New town problems! From the Takoma Park council minutes, Dec. 2, 1901. The town borrowed a rope, but damaged it. They need to make their neighbor whole, and besides, the town really needs to own a rope and 60 ft of its length are still good. Expenditure of $5 to buy the rope, approved.

you suddenly remember what the decades of waiting were for

from our last Purple Line adventure a few months ago

a black dog wearing a red collar and a blue harness with a red leash looks up towards the sky, which is purple and orange from the sunset. he’s standing on some light rail tracks embedded in the ground, and behind him is the faint outline of a station platform and a sign.

A light rail station, with a pylon and a little covered area next to a track embedded in the street, and behind it, on a hill is a middle school. The station is still under construction and there’s a porta potty on the platform.

A light rail station under construction. And the foreground is a pylon with a sign, saying Dale Drive and it’s sitting on a platform with tracks on either side. In the background are orange construction barriers.

A sign that says Dale Drive north with a handicap symbol beneath it. Behind it is intersection with a traffic light that’s green, and behind that are some trees in the sky, which is orange and purple with the sunset.

on our walk today Drizzy and I visited the under construction Dale Drive Purple Line station. I decided to time how long it would take us to go home walking at a brisk pace: 14 minutes door to door, stopping twice to sniff and pee. ngl I never thought this day would come

Extremely silver spring things happening in the Thanksgiving parade

a thanksgiving day parade in silver spring with an inflatable turkey

there's a bright and festive holiday parade between me and the movie about nazi war crimes i'm trying to get to

MoCo Makes History By Appointing First Ever Dead Historic Preservation Commissioner WHEATON, MD – The Montgomery County Council took a visionary leap toward modernizing bureaucracy by confirming the appointment of its first-ever dead resident to the Historic Preservation Com…

Any changes to the neighborhood will be approved 'over his dead body'.

the blog was called “U Street Dirt” and I think it was somebody who lived on Wallach Place