After failing to stop a major state housing bill from becoming law, Los Angeles leaders are turning to plan B: Delaying Senate Bill 79's implementation and pushing for unspecified legislative changes next year. My dispatch for @politico.com Pro subscribers subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2025...

A federal program that deported 400,000 immigrants from 2008-2014 increased new-construction home prices by 16%, or $50k. This is net of reduced demand effects. 2023 paper haas.berkeley.edu/wp-content/u...

Naftali wants to demo a 33-story 1979 rental bldg on Fifth Ave., but zoning only allows same-sized replacement. It should be rezoned with enough density to match the height of the Pierre. I don’t care that it’s all ultraluxury condos, same-sized redev is a travesty newyorkyimby.com/2025/11/rend...

Benjamin Couillard’s job market paper finds rising housing costs explain 51% of the decline in US total fertility rate between the 2000s and 2010s, and we’d have 11% more births since 1990 without rising costs. Any economics care to opine on the methodology? drive.google.com/file/d/1BK6j...

Thanks to @stefanoschen.bsky.social and @nytimes.com for picking up our report on global transit operations. It’s clear that the rest of the world has moved toward more automated and leaner operations without the sky falling. Legislating ops from Albany is overreach: www.nytimes.com/2025/11/13/n...

Weird request: anybody in Minneapolis want to take a field trip and look at a stairway for me? 630 Cedar Ave. S. had a big fire, and has scissor stairs. The state report about the fire implies that the stairways were open to one another (no wall separating them) – I'd like to confirm that was true.

After 42 years, Berkeley is kicking street festivals off of Telegraph Ave. because the fire department has decided on a new, stricter interpretation of the fire code that does not allow 26-ft. fire lanes required next to buildings of 30+ ft. to be blocked even by a street festival

Race/gender prefs in procurement really do narrow bidder pools and raise prices, so it’s maddening that rather than just end them, govts switch to some other pref. Not just in reaction to Trump – Calif cities did the same after Prop 209. They don’t care who benefits, they just HAVE to drive up costs

I didn’t realize the Midea units they’re installing (or…were…looks like they’ve stalled…) are so close to actual mini-splits. At this point, why don’t they just tackle the code barriers that forbid the real thing?

“A large housing project delivering more than 500 homes in west London will no longer go ahead…Specifically, [the developer] claims that the most significant reason for its termination was the new requirement to provide two staircases in London for buildings over 18 metres.”

Worth pointing out this bill would do more than freeze the MTA on two-person operation for all lines with it — it would require the MTA to hire conductors for all the services that have switched over to OTPO. (Shuttles, late night G, weekend M)

New Marron survey of 400+ subway lines across the world from London to Paris to Shanghai finds just 6% still use two-person train operation, which would be required by a TWU-backed bill. “It doesn’t really matter to us what the data shows,” says TWU boss Samuelsen www.nytimes.com/2025/11/13/n...

NYC Council has a veto-proof majority on a union-backed bill to set a $40/hour minimum average compensation for workers on city-funded affordable housing projects, kicking in at 100 units www.crainsnewyork.com/politics-pol...

Some old-school Philly corruption that selects winners and losers based on their personal relation or lack thereof to the police. In a city with a $1.2 billion surplus, apparently street festivals just aren't important to the Mayor www.inquirer.com/news/philly-...

Important to get single-stair through in a viable way to make 16-unit projects work. You aren’t going to find many two-stair buildings with 16 or fewer units, and the current single-stair limits are three stories, four units per floor – just 12 units.

I am most interested in an ability to execute so they can roll out as many effective projects as possible. Supporting transit, bikes, and pedestrians ideologically is table stakes and easy to find nowadays – I also want somebody who can turn costs around, improve project quality, and enforce.

I wonder how much of the Adams administration’s pro-housing stance was sincere, and how much was because a few people at the very top perceived it as a way to tweak his political opponents. Because now that the politics have changed, he doesn’t seem so pro-housing! nypost.com/2025/11/12/u...

Amazing how gullible people on TikTok are. There’s basically not a single comment on this video siding with the teacher, it’s all about how racist the teacher is! It’s obvious at 0:30 that they were bullying that poor girl! The girl even starts smiling when the teacher mentions it!

Good news, but as an MIH high-rise rezoning, feasibility requires very high rents. If we get enough construction that new LIC rents fall below that (not sure the exact number but in my bones I’m feeling…$4,000/mo. 1BR?), construction will stop. This is the problem with inclusionary requirements.

Beyond the obvious top-line—that the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law failed to change the equation of transit funding—this also highlights just how important it is to get transit construction costs under control. It's lighting money on fire. Great thread by @yonahfreemark.com:

It’s hard for me to see how New York can stay as low-crime as it is in the long run with the Supreme Court flooding the city with guns www.thecity.nyc/2025/11/12/n...

Caltrain needs to be planning for driverless operations at high frequencies (and probably lower fares) to compete. That can start by cutting the second conductor almost immediately and reinvesting the savings in more service.

Today Mayor Bass declared the homelessness emergency over so that we no longer have to permit housing for them

Construction without cranes, lifts, or hoists, in the richest city in human history

These tariffs are a war on flavor. They want us to eat dollar store domestic pasta and season our food with salt and pepper. All of those 1950s memes were meant to be taken literally.

FTA's guidance on utility coordination ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.do...

I genuinely through that when East Side Access opened, NYC Transit would take over Atlantic to Jamaica as a subway line or something, or at least the LIRR would do their best impression, with frequent shuttle service and leaner staffing. Am I hallucinating or did they hint that that was the plan?

The 26ft clear road width requirement from the US model fire code, Appendix D: Not only making road diets ineffective and brownfield redevelopment boring and car-centric, but now also being used to prevent construction of taller, safer buildings on streets that don't comply. This rule needs to go.

Memo on Coastal Commision’s thinking here documents.coastal.ca.gov/assets/lcp/D...

For AB2097 projects (within 1/2 mile of major transit stops) the Coastal Commission’s authority to require parking has been limited but they don’t like this and will instead require in-lieu fees or other “mitigations” which has the net effect of causing developers to just build the parking.

What if – windows that kept sound out?

Don’t worry, Americans – it won’t be sold in the US any time soon. It uses R290 refrigerant, which is not allowed here.

Don’t worry, this is not true. The city of LA and the state of California are ensuring that nothing except luxury single-family mansions (with the occasional guest house ADU for visitors/the help) can be built in Pacific Palisades.

wow

Single-Stair Sickos might like to learn that a lot of European cities used to produce detailed books on their built environment, including complete floor plans. Here's a snippet from Hamburg und Seine Bauten (1914)

Check out the depth of this @thecacoast.bsky.social required parking lot for a new apartment building in Santa Monica. This looks like an expensive hole! Great news for renters. And I’m sure the neighbors will love all the additional cars this puts on the road.

Next Wednesday, November 19, I am participating in a panel discussion at AIA Brooklyn with @holz-bau.bsky.social and SO-IL's Jonathan Molloy about building code reform. It will be in-person in Downtown Brooklyn from 6 to 8:30 p.m., register free to attend here: www.eventbrite.com/e/rethinking...

The good news: Portland is opting into Oregon's optional 4-story single-stair code section. The bad news: Portland's fire marshal has managed to insert a poison pill into what appeared to be a take-it-or-leave-it appendix text, likely making it unusable in most cases. djcoregon.com/news/2025/11...

"I was going to run for my mom's congressional seat, but I realized I couldn't beat Scott Wiener. Now I'm running for his senate seat instead! No, I could not be bothered to re-film this video to focus on issues that actually pertain to this race. Thank you for your attention to this matter!"

The video says she's "fighting for consumer rights, women’s rights, gun violence survivors, immigrants, and our most vulnerable communities against the threat we face." Pretty much feels like it was filmed for a congressional run that's not happening.

Pelosi's announcement video for her state senate run (released on Twitter this morning) mentions absolutely nothing about cost of living or affordability or any major California-centric issues. Off to a great start!

Meanwhile, '3rd world' India has almost electrified all of its vast network in record time. infra.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/railway...

@stephenjacobsmith.com you should see their ratios. a D ticket is 15 trips a month to be worth it. www.mvg.de/abos-tickets...

huh I didnt realize a single ticket in munich is 4.10€ ($4.75) now

If you don’t like the look of these new “zebra buildings” in Spain, fine, but to say they’re “globalized” is ridiculous – you only see these in Spain. It’s a uniquely Spanish contemporary style! You won’t find these buildings in France, Italy, or China.

An extremely high marginal tax rate on production of a socially desirable thing that there's a broad shortage of, no matter how that tax is spent, seems like... extremely bad policy with a huge deadweight loss

Though they are usually well intentioned, unfunded inclusionary zoning requirements make housing less affordable by increasing the cost of building new homes, which worsens the housing shortage and drives up rents.

Construction will soon start at 130 Lafayette St., a 25-story mixed-income tower allowed by the SoHo/NoHo rezoning that @opennewyork.org fought for and won newyorkyimby.com/2025/11/cons...

Trump trade war costs US Italian pasta: “Exporters say import and antidumping duties totaling 107% on their pasta brands will make doing business in America too costly and are preparing to pull out of U.S. stores as soon as January.” Via WSJ