The only political issue Americans really feel passionately about is parking

There’s a real risk of catastrophe this November but also of saving the country from MAGA. What’s going to matter here is Iowa, Ohio, Texas and tons of red-leaning House seats. www.slowboring.com/p/the-narrow...

Everyone hates data centers … … and everyone hates carbon pricing … … but what if we did carbon pricing for data centers? www.slowboring.com/p/should-dat...

25 summers ago, I was an intern for Chuck Schumer’s communications director at a time when senators didn’t believe in “safe seats” and everyone was trying hard to persuade the persuadable voters. www.slowboring.com/p/what-i-lea...

A public space that’s not unpleasantly overcrowded some of the time is going to be badly underused most of the time. www.slowboring.com/p/against-ur...

The UK has banned both infill and sprawl so there’s no economic opportunity and immigration & everything else becomes a zero-sum battle for resources. Not surprising the voters are always mad. But informed people say reversing these policies would be unthinkable so I guess they’ll try a new guy.

There is way too much going on in the field of urban planning and way too little confidence that market prices can assess tradeoffs. www.slowboring.com/p/against-ur...

The problem with G&T programs isn’t that there’s no such thing as a “gifted” kid, it’s exactly the opposite — lots of good schools and programs have very weak actual education and their apparent successes are pure selection effects. www.slowboring.com/p/the-real-p...

All good progressives need to get behind terrestrial data center construction to stop SpaceX and make Elon Musk sad.

I sort of hate these Pew political typology quizzes but I did one anyone and according to @pewresearch, my political group is Left-Out Left, which includes 12% of U.S. adults. Take the Political Typology Quiz to see where you fit. www.pewresearch.org/politics/qui...

New post out: "How to beat Reform" Using exclusive polling I look at what attack lines work best on Reform, which of their voters are most likely to defect, and the potential for tactical voting. (£/free trial) open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/h...

More and better immigration can save Social Security, but you need to pay attention to the details. www.slowboring.com/p/better-imm...

The Maine senate race has become a proxy battle for all kinds of factional thoughts about where Democrats should go, but this is the one state where all you need is party unity and Orange Man Bad to win. www.slowboring.com/p/against-th...

College should be hard www.slowboring.com/p/hard-work-...

Instead of "public safety" and "gun violence" can we just go back to crime? www.slowboring.com/p/can-we-ret...

Screwworm, Ebola, measles and other problems are piling up as Trumps degrades the basic functions of the American government. www.slowboring.com/p/trumps-war...

Hello. Philosophers and others have had an annoyingly hard time explaining what it means for a *human* to be conscious or how you would know. But you can’t say anything about AI consciousness without an account of humans. www.slowboring.com/p/nobody-kno...

This looks like a really boring post that is TOTALLY my jam.

Seems like you could finance a fair amount of reporting for whatever this must cost

Now that Broadcom > Meta or Tesla don’t we need to retire Magnificent Seven as a stock market concept?

A lot of interesting policy debates turn out to hinge on really tedious methodological questions. www.slowboring.com/p/the-neglec...

I really don't like the extent to which people have normalized the idea of just lying about people over political disagreements, @jamellebouie.net has obviously written about Gaza — just Google!

I’m 45 so I’m going to buy and hold and assume that the odds of market prices being wrong are roughly balanced in both directions.

What about a sector-specific carbon tax on data centers?

Platner’s more successful rival in the Hancock County, ME oyster farming game is announcing plans to expand her business and vertically integrate into restaurants. www.bangordailynews.com/2026/06/05/h...

It’s interesting to me that Brandon Scott does not really seek a reputation as “tough on crime.” You could easily characterize these exact focused deterrence policies as very much in that vein, but he prefers a very different set of linguistic cues and framings.

Excited about a Bass-Raman runoff because it’ll give me a chance to finally be in the cool kids left-YIMBY coalition.

This is a huge pathology in American transit. The USA is a great country with many virtues but everyone knows we are not a world leader in trains — just copy other people’s trains!!! Copy the project management, the operations, and the rolling stock itself.

The three-legged stool of horseshoe politics — temperamental impatience, excessive negativity, and a zero-sum attitude toward substantive issues. www.slowboring.com/p/the-origin...

There’s some unexplored tension between “vote blue no matter who” and becoming enraged by the ideas of Democrats who manage to win in Trump districts.

The treacherous politics of child care www.slowboring.com/p/elizabeth-...

Chips

On net, a good situation for Democrats

I always think people are too quick to concede this financial conflict point — if you upzone Santa Monica, land presumably gets cheaper somewhere (the Inland Empire? The exurbs of Phoenix?) but incumbent Santa Monica homeowners’ property would get more valuable not less.

You forgot about Poland! www.slowboring.com/p/learning-f...

Asset prices have grown dramatically faster than wages over the past generation — this chart is an understatement that doesn’t even include dividends or imputed rent. www.slowboring.com/p/the-triump...

This was truly a special time in American life

Ken Paxton is a weak nominee. He’s also a genuinely terrible person — corrupt as hell, abuses power, etc — whose elevation would be a disaster. Talarico has a real obligation to do what it takes to win in a red state and keep this guy out. www.slowboring.com/p/james-tala...

Platner is running in a blue state in a strong year for Democrats, so his best friend should be generic baseline Orange Man Bad partisanship. The fly in the ointment is most of the people behind his campaign are committed factionalists who seem to find that message cringe.

Gamblers think it matters

Getting transit construction costs under control would be a massive win for labor, if they could be inspired to care about questions of project design and project management. www.slowboring.com/p/union-enth...

Podcasted with @JerusalemDemsas about the striking fall in crime over the past four years, with 2026 homicides on track to be the lowest on record. www.slowboring.com/p/the-amazin...

There’s this effort to shame abundance people into catering more to labor union interests but I think this is backwards — the actually existing abundance agenda is better for labor than the status quo and union-boosters should say that. www.slowboring.com/p/union-enth...

MAHA? www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I’m surprised by how little attention basic fiscal policy issues are getting in 2026 compared to fifteen years ago — the case for freaking out about the budget deficit has gotten way stronger since Covid. www.slowboring.com/p/time-to-fr...

Very odd argument here which just talks around the basic point that most rank and file African-American Dems have relatively moderate views. newrepublic.com/article/2106...

Tony Blair on the Labour government's difficulties, absolutely correct, I think: institute.global/insights/pol...

By nominating Ken Paxton, a strong rightwinger who will mobilize the base, rather than falling for the RINO myth that swing voters exist who he might alienate, Republicans have set themselves up perfectly to retain the Texas senate seat.

Underrated mayor?