How to identify American fascists as stated by our own US government in March of 1945.

Operation Breakthrough, a HUD project in the 1960s, produced some significant advances in prefabricated building construction methods and also exposed the need for building code reform.

Wow - again, if you build separated, protected bike lanes, people will use them. The better and more connected the routes are, the more ridership increases.

A friend in Minneapolis just sent me this video. Looks like thousands have come together for a vigil after an ICE agent shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good. This was my neighborhood for several years before coming to Portland.

The Americas see about 3% of global elevator installations as of 2020. The U.S. & Canada: even less. But we've stuck with our own unique set of elevator codes, as if elevator companies still have no choice but to beat a path to our door. Nope! "Everywhere else" is a bigger common market now.

Countries that have adopted the International Building Code

In many advanced nations that have better fire safety records than the United States and Canada, construction costs per square foot do NOT increase as density increases. If US planners want to make housing more affordable, they should fix our mediocre building codes.

*staring directly into the camera*

This week UCLA Housing Voice is joined by @muhammadspeaks.bsky.social to talk about construction defect liability, a consumer protection law that can create big barriers to condo development, taking one of the most affordable ownership options off the market. www.lewis.ucla.edu/2025/12/17/1...

the compactness of point access blocks means that even on tiny sites, you can fit affordable family-sized homes with daylight on multiple sides and ability to cross ventilate. www.espazium.ch/de/aktuelles...

You can look at all the finalists for the National Single-Stair Competition's Austin Award here: drive.google.com/drive/folder...

I'm so fucking tired of so many people being killed in traffic crashes. I'm so fucking tired but I'm also so, so fucking angry. I use obscene language because what is obscene is over 40,000 people/year dying in preventable crashes in the US, 7,000 or so who are merely walking, and society just 🤷🏻‍♀️

“In medical research, there’s a practice of ending a study early when the results are too striking to ignore…When an intervention works this clearly, you change what you do.” www.nytimes.com/2025/12/02/o... (🎁🔗)

Really thorough history. Why the West was downzoned www.worksinprogress.news/p/how-the-wo...

“Between 2010 and 2022, structural fires in Berkeley injured an average of 2 people per year, while between just 2017 and 2022, traffic accidents injured or killed an average of 694 people annually.”

new south wales (sydney) govenment's pattern handbook - which fast tracks permitting applications - features 4-7 story single stair buildings shop-pattern-book.planning.nsw.gov.au/collections/...

NEW PAPER w/ @cselmendorf.bsky.social & @jkalla.bsky.social: An under-appreciated reason why voters oppose dense new housing, especially in less-dense neighborhoods: they think it looks ugly and want to prevent that, even in other neighborhoods. Some of what we think is NIMBYism might not be!

Relegalize SROs. Relegalize single stair buildings to enable larger, family sized homes. Legalize townhomes everywhere. Legalize ADUs everywhere. Legalize apartment buildings in more places. Yes to all the homes. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/25/n...

in q&a, the kelsey's allie cannington mentions they are excited about single stair and elevator reform - and mention how it can help get elevators into smaller projects. wow. cc @edmendoza.bsky.social @stephenjacobsmith.com @markasaurus.bsky.social thekelsey.org/learn-center...

our solar costs are significantly higher our infrastructure costs are significantly higher our elevator costs are significantly higher our healthcare costs are significantly higher our housing costs are significantly higher (for far lower quality) i wonder if we'll ever address this

Guillermo del Toro on wealth: "a wealthy man is a man who has enough, not a man that needs more. If you have enough to invite someone for a beer? You're rich. If you have a yacht, planes, islands, and you still need more? You're not rich."

the 3-bedroom apartments in this 46-home project w/ a kindergarten and 5 commercial spaces rent for $2,200 in zuerich no windowless bedrooms. dual aspect - can cross ventilate, daylight on multiple sides. kitchen separated from living. balconies. shading. www.nimbusarch.ch/portfolio/ne...

Pew finds something that everybody in codes and standards knows but few will say out loud: we apply far stricter fire safety standards to apartments than to houses. www.pew.org/en/research-...

The wait is FINALLY over! Our new book “Women Changing Cities: Global Stories of Urban Transformation” is NOW AVAILABLE worldwide through RIBA Publishing wherever fine books are sold. From Paris to Bogota, from Manila to Montreal—when women lead, cities thrive: www.modacitylife.com/women-changi...

I was shocked when I heard Scott Wiener say LA City Council's divided SB 79 vote helped convince state reps to vote yes on the bill. So I mapped it - sure looks like he's telling the truth! The only state reps from LA who voted for SB 79 overlap with city councilmembers who supported the bill. A 🧵:

The world is divided between supply skeptics who believe high hard costs are an intractable problem and those that have looked at US codes and buildings in other developed countries.

SB 79 now stands as the largest pro-housing land-use legislation in this nation’s modern history.

A uni in Aus did a study that showed that over 50% of drivers see ‘cyclists’ as less than human. We use ‘people on bikes’ to try and help humanise them. There’s a fair way to go! www.monash.edu/news/article...

The coalition behind Measure ULA just released a report attacking UCLA research on the tax. They’re claiming it “debunks” the research. It doesn’t even come close. 🧵

'more homes were purchased last year by the Silent Generation (aged 79 to 99) than by Gen Z' also i hate that the rent image is an apartment - when the 'buy' image could be too. www.newsweek.com/gen-z-rentin...

Not building housing screws young people, pushes them out & tanks future economic success. We need to make it easier & faster to build the homes we need for a bright future. Our current vetocracy need to change & we’re working to change it.

Jon Lovett’s face when LA City Councilmember Imelda Padilla said she forced an affordable housing project to go down from six stories to three stories and add in EV charging spaces

Riding the K line is so upsetting, why do we have to wait AT EVERY SINGLE INTERSECTION LIGHT - this is a brand new line that is supposed to connect LAX to the rest of the city!!!!

Why do we need a lot more protected bike-lanes in cities? Because biking in protected #bikelanes poses just 1/10th the risk of biking on major streets with parking. Via @momentummag.bsky.social. Plus they mean a LOT more people choosing biking, which has all sorts of health and cost saving benefits.

Paving over a memorial for a hate crime mass shooting that killed 50 people is some vile, low shit

Reasonable people can disagree on policy. But in virtually every conversation I have with legislators, staff, and lobbyists, I find folks are operating on misinformation spread by bill opponents. Learn the facts about SB 79, key to ending the California housing crisis: cayimby.org/sb-79-explai...

LA city government remains one big HOA, more concerned with protecting wealthy elites from apartments than solving homelessness, overcrowding, and rent burden. Glad to (mostly) see socialists in office vote against the city's opposition to SB 79 and support apartments near transit.

Love this piece by @edmendoza.bsky.social, @muhammadspeaks.bsky.social, and Valerie Wilke on LA's double duplex, which is bringing back a "reserve your bed now" option for city living: www.mercatus.org/research/pol...

we are going to build so many passivhaus + single stair homes

Los Angeles' insane zoning code accidentally produced the modern SRO.

Double duplexes are a super popular and weird kind of LA housing that you’ve probably never heard of. Originally built as co-living buildings for USC students, they are now getting snapped up by homeless service agencies to give unhoused people a home. Guess who hates them? LA politicians!

I wrote about LA’s 23-bedroom apartments, which are legal, profitable, and spreading like crazy slate.com/business/202...

@edmendoza.bsky.social is running a national single-stair competition, and I’m one of the judges! The deadline’s been extended to Aug. 31, more info here: www.singlestair.com

This is why single stair reform is badly needed in LA. We are already doing it, we should expand it for more unit types.

How quickly does a neighborhood change? Exposition Park has been ground zero for double duplex development in LA, with more development happening here than anywhere else in LA. This image illustrates development that occurred in the two square mile section immediately West of USC:

The new ones are four-story, single-stair SROs (legal because they’re built as two-family houses with tons of bedrooms, and then rented out by the room). They’re around $1,000-1,400/mo. for a furnished bedroom with en-suite bath, plus a common living room/kitchen www.moohousing.com/los-angeles-...