These preppers can’t even handle dog leash rules during peacetime. There’s no way they make it through something actually bad. Gift link.

"I have seen what happens when a country that does not need to be broken decides to break itself anyway." Great breakdown from Dr Tedds here on what's at stake in Alberta's flirtation with a Brexit from Canada.

StatCan valiantly asks: Can we explain the emerging gap between perceptions of inflation and CPI by messing with how we impute costs for owned accommodation? The answer appears to be no. www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/62f00...

I need to talk about Sen̓áḵw. This word has been in the news for years, and I still hear it mispronounced constantly—by journalists, politicians, and well-meaning people who just haven't been shown how. It's a word from the Squamish Language. Let me walk you through it. 🧵

The inevitable consequence of cities setting aside so much room for vehicles and so little room for housing is once again in the news I see. (gift link) www.nytimes.com/2026/05/24/u...

One of the little cuties who recently moved into my birdhouse

Nice summary of a great vacancy chain study first-authored by my great UBC colleague Limin Fang.

No surprise, the interpretation of legislated DRIPA requirements is going to the Supreme Court. "B.C. had codified the declaration in law, called the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, or DRIPA, in 2019. The federal government did the same in 2021."

Loving seeing the treemap in action. I also keep checking random trees that I notice. (It’s probably time to remove the extra spring flower highlights/filter.)

Vancouver street tree going rogue at 10th & Alma (@jensvb.bsky.social open tree map mountainmath.ca/vantrees says it's a Worplesdon Sweetgum. Also: White Dwarf Books deserves your business!)

I am proud to accept the endorsement of the Vancouver and District Labour Council. Every single Vancouverite deserves an affordable home, strong public services, a good job, and a living wage. We’ll return respect for workers to City Hall when we retake the Mayor’s Office on October 17 #vanpoli

The most egregiously Vancouver-coded video I've ever seen.

May 12, 2026 (Canadian particles get measured every five years!)

On zoning challenges to unionization: "It is impossible to open an erotic establishment in most boroughs in this city." They're limited to "specific zones" & require "special alcohol permits and undergoing public consultations." So “the clubs have like a monopoly.” www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Ahoy housing wonks in Alaska and BC! Sightline is hiring part-time contributors to help advance housing abundance in these two corners of Cascadia. Please spread the word! www.sightline.org/about/careers/

My new article on the “Pig in the Python” argues that the demand for young workers will grow dramatically over the coming decades, likely leading to rising wages, stronger unions, and lower inequality. 1/28

Steller's Jay dropping by to inspect the carpentry work on my combination bean pole and grape arbour. Not impressed, but willing to overlook issues if we can agree on a "mutually beneficial" exchange.

Nice! Just finished reading the final Wildwood volume to the youngest earlier this year. And just bought the oldest the most recent Decemberists album this past month.

This brilliant map points back toward the early Chicago School obsession with "mobility" in defining The City & also its pathologization, e.g. langurbansociology.wordpress.com/wp-content/u... Pathologizing mobility still inflects a lot of academic treatments, even though most moves are happy ones!

When I ran for election, I met with a group of seniors and one of the most heartbreaking things was listening to a man tell me about how he had to give up his cat because his subsidized housing wouldn't allow pets. He said it almost wasn't worth it b/c how lonely it was.

Fun StatCan study on perceptions of misinformation out today, with interesting demographics on news by source. Two critiques: 1) breakdown by language should be included! 2) my original StatCan notifications link was, itself, misinformation. This one's right! www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/75-00...

I like to think of this map as "what we miss when we focus too much on median incomes to sum up the distribution" Always a fun exercise when I can get Jens to show it off in my grad quantitative methods class.

Does this mean we can't dunk on Toronto anymore?

Atmospheric CO₂ of 340 ppm

Visited senakw today - omg. It’s pretty epic, and cheap for the location.

Came outside this morning to the sight of a Merlin being chased across the sky by an Anna's Hummingbird. Which was a pretty good show for World Migratory Bird Day, even if it was put on by two locals.

Crossing guards are the best

Today we’re publishing an important investigative story by Emily Enns. This story maps the connections between a group of mostly retired academics and think tanks to sow doubt about the historical truths of residential schools in Canada. thetyee.ca/News/2026/05...

FINALLY got my Census form! It's a shorty (sigh)... But even so, it still contains fun information like, "what does Canada consider a potentially ambiguous member of a household?"

Good to see StatCan pay attention to household formation and changing living arrangements. This piece looks at changes in homeownership and does also try to pay some attention to select changes in household formation.

Kind of surprised that this hasn't been bigger news. It's finals week for a whole lot of universities, and yet, Canvas (a learning/grading platform used by ~9,000 schools globally) is currently inaccessible because of a pay-or-have-your-data-leaked hack. www.insidehighered.com/news/tech-in...

Building delightful, walkable cities with beautiful apartments is somehow still an overlooked climate solution: www.sightline.org/2026/05/05/c...

This is Juan de Fuca Strait erasure. (which is fine actually, but it's still fun to think about my local trade chokepoint in context, so here's a traffic density map from: clearseas.org/wp-content/u...)

International students have been the political scapegoat for federal govt, who introduced a cap on visas citing pressures on healthcare put by students. Yet, FOI'd data shows international students have contributed nearly half a billion dollars directly to BC healthcare in the last 7 years. #bcnews

For those following the Cowichan decision concerning Lulu Island claims & related controversy, there's some good commentary on the decision in BC Studies (i.e. backing up my priors, but with greater scholarly rigour!) bcstudies.com/case_comment...

Wow! Flood damages are rising fast! Think climate change x housing crisis pushing sprawl into flood plains Better public data on risk is needed, but relying upon proprietary vendor data has hurt the effort. Nice CBC reporting: www.cbc.ca/news/science... Audit: www.canada.ca/en/auditor-g...

Ok, fine. I've been pretty pleased with my photos of Sen̓áḵw, but I have to admit that pivoting to video and adding a whale swimming in the foreground would indeed have made them better. So nice!

Woof. I've been critical of this Urban Institute study since it first dropped, but it turns out that the methodological errors were even more serious than I understood. econjwatch.org/file_downloa...

It's 2026 Census Week, and to celebrate we put the refreshed CensusMapper live. It's got a fresh look and feel and advanced map-making capabilities for everyone. Check it out! Read about what changed in our blog post:

Victoria harbour is lovely. Sure wish I could get their by passenger ferry direct from Vancouver (no shade intended to Harbour Air, but definitely some shade intended for BC Ferries).

It's May 3rd, so for all you OneCity members...it's time! Time to vote...PETER FOR COUNCIL! I think Vancouver Council needs a committed pro-housing voice with a demonstrated track record of fighting for the housing we need. To help get us there, rank me #1 on your ballot!

StatCan is not on bsky, so cross-posting their LinkedIn message here.

the B.C. Coroners Service posted two reports on April 24 and I guess nobody noticed? I did just now. it should've been A HUGE SCANDAL #bcpoli Deaths of Individuals Experiencing Homelessness in British Columbia (2016-2024) www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/b...

a very good, concise explainer worth sending to anyone who thinks the panic over private property begins with DRIPA (and could be resolved by dismantling it)

Rough check on where in Metro Vancouver we're still seeing Greenfield Sprawl given tight Urban Containment Boundary (top 4 munis where new 2024 single-family dwellings exceed 2023 demolitions) Langley Twnshp: 387 Surrey: 204 Delta: 81 Maple Ridge: 73 data metrovancouver.org/services/reg...

Oh no, a complication on my border county diff in diff #econsky

Seems like the identification of "easy marks" increasingly explains so much of our political divides (it was always a better explanation for educational effects than vague hand-waving at "social class") Maybe not too surprising that "easy marks" are also finding it difficult to meet expenses?

Good reporting from the NYTimes on gold mining and shady minting practices, but it's pretty funny to me that this side story on problems at The Royal Canadian Mint basically boils down to "you should stop pretending to trust your US suppliers." www.nytimes.com/2026/04/27/w...

One of those Kids Super Fun Book activities where you help each newborn baby spider find its shadow. Remember: only the baby spiders that manage to successfully trap & eat their shadows grow up to become full-fledged adults!

My takeaways from the SSMUH legislation is that if you are going to force municipalities to allow housing you should not give them the opportunity to water it down and nerf the requirements. Otherwise munis will do just that, either from the get-go or after learning from neighbouring munis.