I had an idea yesterday about making a word search that, when solved, would be a data visualization. So, I coded it up... and it worked! This shows abundance of three bird species in Brooklyn Bridge Park over a year. It feels like there are some fun possibilities here. 📊🪶

"[C]odes of neighborliness or of common decency are, in other words, the bare minimum for us to exist peacefully as profoundly different people who nevertheless share the same time and place." Really like this. & thinking about how "signalling" decency establishes terrain upon which to neighbour.

Positive talk on immigration coupled with calls to boost Provincial Nominee Program and International Students is, indeed, a very welcome pivot. www.theorca.ca/commentary/r...

Technologically advance a band: Steel & Wine

To realize the Right to Housing we need an effective right to build housing. Unfortunately that's not universally understood. E.g. the City of Vancouver has called on the province to declare housing as a human right, but at the same time it continues to severely restrict the building of housing.

More evidence of a pretty straightforward strategy for Canada here for everyone (rightfully) mad at the USA. Build lots of Housing + Expand Immigration = Eat the USA's lunch

This morning's crew looking forward to the equinox bringing them just a bit more cover of night

Great stuff here trying to bring more housing opportunities (Six Floors and Corner Stores!) to Vancouver's active transportation networks and parks from @lucymaloney.bsky.social and @onecityvan.bsky.social Full motion: council.vancouver.ca/20250917/doc...

Boy, these municipal public hearings are real eye-opening

"Can they truly be so ignorant to the words of a man they have so rushed to memorialize? I don’t know. But the most telling detail in Klein’s column was that, for all his praise, there was not a single word in the piece from Kirk himself." Ta-Nehisi Coates, with receipts.

I am shocked -- shocked! -- to learn that housing prices fell the most in metros where inventory of homes increased by a lot. via @harvard-jchs.bsky.social www.jchs.harvard.edu/blog/home-pr...

This is correct. Also, and even though they're all bad, the "pumpkin spice" vacancy trutherism is clearly the worst.

4 and 6 storey single-stair co-ops mixed among single fam houses, in a neighbourhood with 50' lots.

Important new research on the impact of zoning on the housing market. Minimum lot size requirements have two main effects: they increase housing costs and contribute to racial segregation. This was somewhat known to housing folks, but this paper matters because it uses advanced methods and data

"[T]he idea that immigrants, temporary foreign workers and students are taking jobs from Canadians seems to have entered mainstream thinking and contributed to policy changes..." See also housing, e.g., our Housing Nationalism paper: open.library.ubc.ca/soa/cIRcle/c... www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

A kvetch, for the benefit of students doing academic writing: A literature review should not be a gallery of nodding bobble-heads made to look as if authors agree. They don't. Give me a cage fight. A murder mystery. Heck, even a comedic romance! But please stir up something between your authors.

"The buildings could be used to meet a need for on-reserve housing, where zoning requirements are more lax, with nations ready to pay the relocation costs..." www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Great collab between @ruthbenghiat.bsky.social and @ivan-ehlers.bsky.social for the @latimes.com! Share widely

Highest level of support since Gallup started asking this question a quarter century ago

Fun thread! Worth adding a local reference to the historic intersection of tailoring with labour causes & equality between the sexes: Vancouver's first woman City Councillor (CCF) Helena Gutteridge, elected 1937. (Irene Howard's book on her is great!) montecristomagazine.com/community/he...

TIL about the CRA's "40km closer to work" rule concerning whether moving expenses can be deducted, which is fascinating on many levels, intersecting with, e.g., demography of mobility vs. migration. But also a reminder that CBC's Jason Proctor is really good at his job. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Not sure who all needs to hear this, but: Migration is a Human Right in the same way Housing is a Human Right! That we can't rely upon nation-states to uphold these rights doesn't mean we shouldn't treat them as such. We reserve the right to roam if we want to. youtu.be/iNwC0sp-uA4?...

Fun checking out how Empty Homes Taxes are faring elsewhere. I like how the EHT in Berkeley interacts with property tax differently than in Vancouver, operating to undercut perverse incentives created by California's terrible Prop 13 system.

Gotta say, the awfulness of this ICE raid down in WA still floors me. And who knows, maybe some of the smoke settling into Vancouver today is coming from the very same fire...

Multiplexes are coming! But more slowly in some places than others. Why? @jensvb.bsky.social & I highlight our recent (open access) paper w/ Tsur & @tomdavidoff.bsky.social comparing multiplex reforms in Kelowna & Coquitlam & also look at Vancouver so far. homefreesociology.com/2025/08/29/m...

Happy that the paper by @tomdavidoff.bsky.social @lausterna.bsky.social Tsur Somerville and I on the outcomes of the multiplex upzonings in Kelowna and Coquitlam is out. While the two zoning reforms look similar on paper, we detail how their real world outcomes differ. doi.org/10.1016/j.jh...

"Housing delayed is housing denied." Good piece exploring the court's role in blocking housing reform in the US. Some differences, but similarities can also be drawn here in BC, e.g. with the halting of the supportive housing project at 8th & Arbutus. www.theargumentmag.com/p/yimbys-bea...

Multiplexes are coming! But more slowly in some places than others. Why? @jensvb.bsky.social & I highlight our recent (open access) paper w/ Tsur & @tomdavidoff.bsky.social comparing multiplex reforms in Kelowna & Coquitlam & also look at Vancouver so far. homefreesociology.com/2025/08/29/m...

Quick Vancouver Bus story: Partner & I were talking fashion on the 14 once & I joked that buying most of my clothing at Mark's Warehouse for Men effectively made me a Mark's-ist. A heavily bearded fellow passenger excitedly piped up, "Excuse me, did you just say you were a Marxist?" 1/

Them: “Cities are all rotting hellscapes!” Cities:

As a parent, I am frequently reminded that washrooms are a crucial but frequently overlooked component of public transit infrastructure

ah yes, vital that we have housing for cars and not people

Sunset in Vancouver

Three towers of Sen̓áḵw (phase 1) rising above Kits 6 Reserve as reclaimed by the Squamish Nation near downtown Vancouver. senakw.com/place Here emerging from trees on the Parkview Tower lot at the foot of the Burrard Bridge nearby (also formerly part of Kits 6). 1/

the only thing i dislike about this essay from @polphilpod.bsky.social is that i didn't write it first. it gets at the point a lot of us are waking up to: we must reinvigorate liberalism *as a political movement* and not just a structure of institutions newrepublic.com/article/1992...

Pretty sure I know a town or two in Canada with a LOT of south-facing balconies...

Great explainer in case you've been wondering (like I have) how our cheap-o overhead powerlines & their clearances work with laneways & multiplex...

I'm at Vancouver Airport where CUPE's Air Canada Component is picketing. Air Canada flight attendants are still on strike, defying a back-to-work order from the federal government.

2018- mortgage stress tests keep winking at us from the rear-view mirror "Payment levels are going up for many consumers when they're renewing their mortgage and when that is a little bit too much, the first place you tend to see that is on things like credit cards..." www.cbc.ca/news/busines...

Dropped by the alley behind Astro Arts to see some of the completed murals we caught in progress last week, including Mara Cortez's memorial to those lost at the Lapu-Lapu Day festival. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

"If Canada had upheld its promises... these matters would not be as complex or unresolved as they are now. This is why First Nations are — and always have been — the architects of certainty in British Columbia." - Good take from @khelsilem.bsky.social here. khelsilem.substack.com/p/the-truth-...

Here is a clear analysis of the BC Supreme Court's decision to recognize that the Cowichan Tribes, Stz’uminus, Penelakut, and Halalt nations hold Aboriginal title to some land in Richmond. Thank you @khelsilem.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/khelsile...

This is cool, but is the split mostly about: a) a rural & perhaps increasingly media-driven fear of people. or b) just different imaginings of what kind of situation "out in public" entails. or c) maybe a combo, because rural folks imagine it means more guns?

'Following Weber, we understand that 'paper' beats the traditional use of coercion of 'rock' by exerting upon it an Iron Cage of bureaucratic rationality. But note here 'scissors' reflect the charismatic dissolution of paper (rather than deriving from neoliberal reform). In this essay I will...'

The latest JEP has an extraordinary set of papers on the economics of housing. My favorite? The one showing that most people incorrectly believe that increasing housing supply won't lower housing costs. Subsidizing home-buying is popular even though it raises costs. 🤦 www.aeaweb.org/issues/814

This is a good juxtaposition, but... The demographic and economic character of your community will change regardless. And that's ok! Even if nobody moved it would change, because people get older, have kids, and die. We gotta let go of how things were in our youth!

Phoenix has always been hot, but not this hot. In early 1900s, highs typically reached 110 degrees fewer than 10 days a year. Last year, it happened 70 times; this year, 30+ already. Nine of the city’s 10 hottest years have come since 2010. This affects everybody, but especially unhoused people.

Three research reports around rental housing out from CMHC today, looking at concerns around rent control, REITs, and evictions. Broad overview here:

Bike + pedestrian paths separated by flowers near the newly daylit stream at Spanish Banks. Seems pretty good! More on stream daylighting: vancouver.ca/news-calenda...

I regret to report that the smoke is now coming this way