California's Homeownership Decline Calls for Massive Housing Build
California has the second lowest homeownership rate in the US after New York, and we've lost ground over the past 20 years. This is not healthy. We need to build a lot more housing and create the next generation of middle-class homeowners. https://t.co/Ti8z138Ekm
San Jose Cuts Fees, Mandates to Revive Development
He slashed fees and unfunded mandates in San Jose, two policy changes that were controversial among the left locally but that reflected common sense, evidence-based reforms to get the city building again. Is that an acceptable answer?
Beyond Zoning: Cost, Materials, Tastes Drive City Designs
I think regulatory explanations are slightly overstated here. Of course, zoning/building codes contribute to design. But it's also cost and availability of materials, consumer tastes, etc, as has always explained why cities build the same typologies at the same time.
Arthurian Legends: Mostly Myth, Not Medieval History
Picked up this book thinking I would learn about King Arthur, and perhaps pick up a little about British history. But a third of the way through, I'm learning that historians agree that it's almost completely made up, the 1100s...
Human Inquiry Skills Gain Value in AI Era
The rise of AI will massively increase the value on being able to generate new information that isn't yet available in digital form. Can you call people and ask questions? Can you observe things in a systematic way? Can you...
East Coast Urban Corridor Deserves Japan‑Style High‑Speed Rail
It seems pretty reasonable to me that the dense urbanism that extends from Boston to Miami should be connected by high-speed rail, as in Japan. https://t.co/oPwSqixSot
Adopt California ADU Model, Create National Market
Illinois should align their ADU framework with California's highly successful ADU framework. We need a national common market for manufactured ADUs in particular to really drive costs down. This is theoretically something the federal government might coordinate, but, well...
California's Costly Fees Stifle Projects, Drain Tax Revenue
More high-cost California cities need to be slashing fees and unfunded mandates. Slapping six-figures in costs on projects such that nothing pencils, thereb6 losing millions in possible tax revenue, is penny rich, pound dollar poor policy.
Inclusionary Zoning Halts Construction Without High Market Rents
This is kind of the problem though, right? (I) Even in the best of cases, inclusionary zoning locks in high market rents. The moment market rents aren't high enough to bear the cross subsidy, construction stops until they are...
Require Cost‑Benefit Review for All Building Code Changes
Every change to the building code should come with a rigorous cost-benefit analysis, and we should to this analysis of the entire existing code. (And then ban arbitrary local amendments that make the code more restrictive.)
From Global Planning Leader to Six‑Figure Bench Costs
America was once a global leader in city planning: we planning out thousands of street grids and civic centers, building the world's largest transit and park networks, inventing new genres of architecture, etc. Now we can barely install a park...
Sacramento's Best Eats: Farm‑to‑Table New American
Part of the mental reset of living in Sacramento has been realizing that it's the first city I've ever lived in where all the best restaurants are farm-to-table New American.
AB130 Exposes the Decline of CEQA NIMBYism
This piece on one of the first Sacramento projects to benefit from the AB 130 CEQA infill exemption ends up being a really interesting profile into the shadowy (dying) wold of CEQA NIMBYism, and the deluded people who engaged in...
Questioning Proven AV Safety Is Irresponsible, Like Vaccine Skepticism
The data on AV traffic safety improvements is so clear and overwhelming that I think it's a bit unethical to run stuff like this. It's basically the transportation planning equivalent of vaccine skepticism.
SB 2074 to Streamline High‑Rise Housing Near Transit
California YIMBY is proud to be sponsoring SB 2074 with @MattHaneySF, a bill that will make it easier to build high-rise residential in the transit-rich downtowns of our state's largest cities. In this thread, a little context. 🧵 https://t.co/cCGoKcLwkl
California Cities Split: San Diego Vacancies Rise, SF Rents Surge
California cities: progress toward RHNA... San Diego: 29% ... highest vacancy rate in 15 years, rents falling Los Angeles: 18% ... San Francisco: 5% ... rock bottom vacancy rate, fastest rising rents in the country https://t.co/dcF33RmwJ2
SB 79 Tackles NIMBY Politics with YIMBY Reform Allies
I understand that the political incentives in this district push align around NIMBYism. (Hence why SB 79 is needed.) And you'll find allies among the YIMBYs on fixing ULA, reforming building codes, and reducing fees. (We're the only ones doing...
Japanese Art Captures Christianity Better than Many Western Works
Since this English-Japanese Twitter cambrian exchange is happening around Easter, I feel I should point out that Japan has produced the two fictional works that I think most understand Christianity: the novel "Silence" by Shusaku Endo and the film "Tokyo...
Earth: Our Oasis Spaceship in the Cosmic Void
"You're on a spaceship called Earth that was created to give us a place to live in the universe. In all of this emptiness ... you have this oasis, this beautiful place that we get to exist together." Sethian Gnostics,...
Red Metros Outpace Blue in Both Infill and Sprawl
I don't think so. Red state metros (Houston, Charlotte, Orlando) build a lot more infill per capita than blue state metros, in addition to sprawl. "Do you support sprawl or infill?" isn't how this issue plays out in the real...
60% Gas Hike Threatens Collapse in Vulnerable Nations
Under normal circumstances, a 60% increase in gas prices is the sort of thing that can easily cause political/economic collapse, a lost decade, and many thousands of lives lost in a place like Guatemala or Thailand.
Push Immediate Central Valley High-Speed Rail Launch
A dumb idea you're all going to hate: at this point, they should just prioritize opening this as operational Central Valley high-speed rail as soon as possible. The extension from Merced to Stockton/Sacramento is easy, and at least as useful...
Midwest Replaces Freeways with Multimodal Linear Neighborhoods
This is great. The Midwest built some truly insane urban freeways, and is now taking the right approach on removing them: don't replace them with a giant dead park, or a dangerous boulevard, but a multimodal corridor surrounded by a...
Pasadena Seeks Exemption From Transit‑friendly SB 79 Amid Rising Rents
Even as rents rise, Pasadena is trying to get carved out from SB 79, a bill that would make it easier to build apartments near transit. https://t.co/8Ku8qFkpZW
Revive Prohibition‑Era River Cruises for Nighttime Jazz Trips
America should bring back Prohibition-era river cruises. I'd totally take a 10-hour overnight ride from Sacramento to San Francisco full of cocktails, jazz, and gambling. https://t.co/eLcJb4fYtl
Legalized Missing‑Middle Housing Stalled by Over‑Restrictive Design Rules
The trouble is that even erstwhile advocates of missing middle legalize it, but then subject to such restrictive design and massing standards that it can never actually get built. That's what's happening right now in Sacramento.
Yearning for K Line Extension to Ditch Traffic, Pricey Parking
Can't wait to someday take the K Line from Midtown to the Hollywood Bowl with my fellow crackheads, instead of sitting in hours of traffic and paying $100 for parking.
California Cities Show Surprisingly Permissive Building Permits
Okay, fine, I'll write my YIMBY hopepill piece. I think the commentariat is underrating the fact that the permitting profile of a non-negligable number of California cities looks like this. https://t.co/dm0ayGhSuO
San Rafael Shifts From 30-Year Housing Freeze to Rapid Build
San Rafael, a city that hasn't permitted 1,600 homes over the past 30 years combined, is on gearing up to build ~1,600 homes in the next two or three years alone. https://t.co/XNcGIGM2zZ
California Dominates Renting Crisis; Remove Homeownership Barriers
Four of the top five metropolitan areas where families are stuck renting are in California—we've got to remove the additional hurdles facing homeownership projects and fix this. https://t.co/dFa0tWCiSh
California Housing Boom Fuels Odd Mixed‑use Projects
He's joking, and this is an absurd example, but expect to see more weird mixed-use development as it gets easier to build housing in California and harder to build anything else. I'm aware of one self-storage project that added ~30...
NYC Moves From ADU Bans to Supportive Website
Eight years ago, I was a city planner in Central Queens. One of the worst part of the job was having to tell homeowners that it wasn't legal to build an ADU. Now New York City has a whole website...
Future K Line Riders Reap Benefits of This Week's Efforts
Many millions of future K Line riders will benefit from the hard efforts of those who held the line this week.
Donald Shoup’s Idea Sparks Chicago Parking Reform Hurricane
A butterfly named Donald Shoup flaps his wings in 1999 and 27 years later a hurricane of parking reform hits Chicago. https://t.co/g1LTjVy6jw
SB 79 Coverage Clarified: New HCD Memo Details
A new HCD advisory memo clarifies various aspect of SB 79's coverage. In a new blog post, we explain some of the key details. The law takes effect on July 1. https://t.co/72OC7L9k4K
LAPD Calls Pedestrian Ticket Sting ‘Education,’ Not Enforcement
It's not a "set up" or a "trap," it's vanilla traffic enforcement along a corridor where reckless drivers regularly strike and kill pedestrians using crosswalk.
Zoning Flexibility Key for Commercial‑to‑residential Conversions
A necessary, if not sufficient, condition for commercial to residential conversions is to provide maximum zoning flexibility, e.g. the exemptions on parking mandates provided for by AB 2097. I provide comment: https://t.co/O3dF26SHCm
Top Gear Mocked Prius, Now It's Mainstream Reliability
Remember in the late 00s/early 10s when the Top Gear guys would endlessly joke about how the Prius was an unreliable car, reliant on untested technology? I remember.
ADU Preemption Law Drives 100,000 New Homes.
California's ADU preemption law—of the sort Michigan is considering this year—has directly led to the construction of over 100,000 housing units that would have been illegal prior to 2017. https://t.co/dtgk8BfnNT
Assuming 100% Development Underestimates Needed Zoning by 5x
This assumes that the probability of development of zoned capacity is 100%. That's unrealistic. Let's math it out: DC needs 120,000 units by 2050. Assume a high p(dev) of 5% every 5 years. DC would need to zone for 622,100...
California's Insurance Could Vanish Within a Decade
It's wild to think that insurance as we know it today might not existing in California in 10 years, and yet it remains a somewhat fringe policy area. https://t.co/LA9JJ0AORm
Google Docs AI Misjudges Its Own AI Usage Guidelines
Ironic that the Google Docs AI provided bad style feedback on the section of an assignment prompt setting out my standards for AI use. https://t.co/QOZtxgEU2Z
California Dream Fades, Yet Solutions Begin Emerging
"For many, the California dream has started to slip away," California YIMBY's Nolan Gray said. "But we're not here to talk about problems. We're here to talk about the beginning of a solution." https://t.co/qf01WgUEly
Sacramento’s Suburbs Grow Northeast, Southeast, Not Toward Bay
Why did Sacramento's suburbanization extend the to the northeast and southeast, rather than to the north, west, or southwest—toward the prosperous Bay Area? (1/2) https://t.co/fYIcWzLEsu
Advocating Middle-Class Housing Amid Low-Income Subsidy Push
Spot on. We try to fill this niche: in a building where every special interest wants their chunk of flesh, and every ideologue only wants subsidized/income-verified/low-income rentals, we're out here fighting to get housing built for normal, middle-class California families.
Forgotten Victims: Forced Sterilizations in India Ignored
Where's the obituary for the millions of poor Indians who were forcibly sterilized by international programs directly inspires by Ehrlich's work? Or would that story be "premature"?
Sierra Foothills Feel Like an Alien, Signal‑free Planet
Driving up the eastern foothills of the Sierra Nevadas is the closest I've ever felt to being on another planet. Extremely isolated, extremely visually striking, no signal.
Office Spaces Often Feel Soul‑destroying, Questioning Return‑to‑office
I'm generally pro-return to office, but I acknowledge that one of the stronger arguments against this view is the fact that the typical American office space is one of the most soul-destroying spaces in the developed world. https://t.co/ruIzNYxOYy
Short‑term Rentals Barely Affect Sacramento Housing Supply
The share of Sacramento's housing stock that is a fully dedicated to short-term rentals is a rounding error, a fraction of a percent. This isn't about housing affordability and it's funny how many people involved are pretending like it is....
Institutional Buying Doesn't Hike Prices; Building New Homes Lowers Them
It's not actually that complicated: 1️⃣ There's no evidence that institutional purchases of existing single-family homes drives up prices. 2️⃣ Institutional financing, building, and ownership of new single-family homes expands the housing supply and drives down prices.