City Observatory

Why things need to change in the conversation about urban change. Dramatically. #UrbanTruth

Image of busy walking street with shops on the ground floor and other uses (offices, apartments) above. The text line says “Wait, we’re afraid of walkable distances now?” Tag line of the Urban Truth Collective at the bottom.

Conspiracy lovers and opportunistic politicians, with some wealthy folks working behind the scenes, have been trying REALLY hard to make us scared of the simple idea of having more things nearby, and more choices in how to get them.

Weird, right? #UrbanTruth

Cities: "We're going to say we want zero traffic deaths, but we want achieve that without actually changing the way we do anything."

The dearth and death of small format retail is a direct result of car dependence.

YOU CANNOT PAVE YOUR WAY OUT OF CONGESTION 🤦‍♂️

Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek is trying to expand the state’s already massive tax breaks for data centers.

Data center companies are already saving nearly $500,000,000 in local property taxes this year in Oregon.

Now the Governor wants to double key tax breaks from 5 years to 10.

A classic example of the benefits of "I" as opposed to "AI." Our collective hive-mind, embodied it networks of smart people are repositories of intelligence. Know-who and know-how and trust all matter, and are poorly imitated by large language models.

Former ICE agent: My first day training new cadets, I received secretive orders to teach them to violate the Constitution by entering homes without a warrant. I watched ICE cut classes that teach our legal system, firearms training, use of force, lawful arrests, and the limits of officers' authority

‘No one deserves this’: Beaverton father dies after deportation to Mexico A Beaverton family is grieving after the father, who was detained and deported by ICE, has now died.

This 53 year old man who lived in my neighborhood w/no criminal record & who had been in the US for 30 years, was detained and thrown into a cold cell for days, caught pneumonia and COVID there and deported.

He finally died.

I am so angry.
www.kptv.com/2026/02/21/n...

Same in Oregon. State DOT planning for big increases in VMT even though state laws call for less travel to achieve climate goals.IBR contradicts region’s climate commitments – share.google/pEyZ6lxCqmRj...

Figure 1: income (in CHF) by migration round

Figure A7: Change in housing consumption per person, disaggregated into those initiated by construction of small units and those by large units.

Yet the findings are consistent with those from other contexts. New homes are occupied by those on relatively high incomes, but initiate moving chains that involve households with progressively lower incomes & homes at lower rents. Households generally move to larger homes.

Portland is facing a $169 million budget deficit due to shelter and public safety costs The projected financial shortfall in the coming fiscal year reflects the city’s reliance on temporary cash.

Portland doesn't have enough to pay for homelessness or cops but does have millions to give to a billionaire NBA team owner. www.opb.org/article/2026...

This hasn’t aged well has it

The economic impact of NBA teams is wildly exaggerated. 130 academic studies show stadiums have essentially no impact on economic growth. Seattle and Vancouver both "lost" their NBA teams with no long term effect on growth. cityobservatory.org/economic-imp...

it's worth asking why swiss coops can afford 20 elevators and 3 and 4-bedroom homes in 4 story buildings, when all we seem to afford are single aspect 280sf microstudios with 1 or 2 elevators for a hundred units

To paraphrase Derek Zoolander: is this a city for ants? We need to think at least three times bigger

So @binnig.bsky.social wins this round of public testimony www.portlandmaps.com/bps/testimon...

State lawmakers ponder $27 million cut from Safe Routes to School, mass layoffs, and more We are at the precipice ODOT has warned us about for many years.

Look at all the beloved programs that are on the chopping block while the Oregon Legislature continues to barrel forward with a plan to execute further bonding to pay for another $160 million towards the proposed Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion.
#orleg #orpol
bikeportland.org/2026/02/12/s...

Yes, bad.

As is also suggested in the piece,
my suggestion would be to impose pricing, but it should be GPS-based congestion pricing (per km or minute) plus geofencing to ensure ‘pauking’ and pickup/dropoff doesn’t take place in bike lanes, bus lanes, etc.

Want to improve affordability and lower rents? Build more housing, especially more apartments. Case in point: Austin, Texas--a building boom produced a precipitous decline in rents. www.apartmentlist.com/research/nat...

Parking garage safety is a huge preoccupation in building codes – but only when it comes to fire. I’ve never heard any concern for getting hit by cars, which I’m sure is a far higher risk.

A Tunnel to Transform Los Angeles The ambitious Sepulveda Transit Corridor project — an automated subway line underneath Bel Air — aims to do something rare in LA: Get people out of their cars.

“A year after the $1.1 billion overhaul,” which added a new lane each direction, “the 405’s rush hour drive times were a minute slower than they were before the workers broke ground. Five years later, traffic was worse at all times of day.”

www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

Having spent most of my working life in transport policy, this is the essential truth that so many people - including politicians with responsibility for transport decisions - don’t or won’t get.

To reduce congestion, you reduce capacity and reduce speed. The empirical evidence is overwhelming.

bsky.app/profile/jcbr...

Patriots, Seahawks Face California Tax Bill in Super Bowl Pursuit California has the highest state income taxes. Here's an estimate of what Drake Maye and Sam Darnold will have to pay after playing in the Super Bowl.

There is surprisingly little research on the public finance implications of "jock taxes." This is fertile ground for a project that could produce several studies.

Same idea, but with income. Not a lot of movement metro-wide, which is probably not great for a 23-year span.

In the city, the upper ~40% of tracts have seen meaningful income growth. The bottom ~60% were hit hard 2000-2010, and had ~recovered in real terms by 2023.

Question: Will any more or fewer fans attend Blazer games if the Moda Center looks like this, or continues to look the way it does now? People go to the Blazer games because of the basketball, not the facade and amenities. This is a gift to the owners and a subsidy to attendees.

Actually, no economist will make such a statement. The strong consensus of economic opinion is it will make zero difference to the long term economic health of the region. Here is a summary of 130 studies by three of the leading scholars on the subject: scholar.google.com/citations?vi...

Kotek bill would allow Oregon cities another growth boundary expansion for housing House Bill 4082 is aimed at spurring the production of senior housing and manufactured homes, the governor says.

Dubious land use policy suggestion: What we need to do is put more seniors and low income people on the urban periphery, where they'll have to own a car to get anywhere, where transit doesn't work, and where they can't walk anywhere.
www.oregonlive.com/politics/202...

Would help to know that "HBE" is "hard braking event". Very, very interesting study.

@oregondot.bsky.social you know what you must do