I've been working with @dbecon.bsky.social to work out some figures on Brisbane's zoning and we started looking at character restrictions. Within 5km of Brisbane's CBD, a whopping 64% of all residential properties have some kind of character restrictions. That's 57% of land or 2,204 hectares.

Before PIA or any of the other ticket clippers are allowed to whinge about a 'planner shortage', can we try not needing: - 60 pages of documentation - a month long notification period - a public panel meeting To permit a restaurant to convert to a bar, with the same operating hours!

By far the best thing Noah Smith has written in a while. Krugman's simply the best to ever do it, and a role model for us all to aspire to

There is not a Party in Australia which is honest with itself about housing. The Libs just want the money tap to flow votes forever. Labor wants prices to rise and come down at the same time. The greens want massive public housing builds but without actually altering any suburbs. None of it is real

We’re going to fall well short of our housing accord target and DPHI is responding by watering down their reforms to the consistency of skim milk. People are sleeping in their cars and they’re handwringing over whether four storey apartments are “discordant” with $3m terraces adjacent to the CBD.

Planning is all about matching development to infrastructure capacity- that's why we build all our housing out West where half the kids are in demountable classrooms and don't build where principals are desperate for more kids.

is this a.... special?

possibly the thing I am most smug about Sydney relative to other cities is that almost everyone taps on the bus

Today I crossed an important milestone- every single employer I have ever had (except for my current one) have now backpaid me for paying under the award. 5 from 5 baby!

I'm far from an expert but to my untrained eye, compared to 75% of the buildings in the cbd, the casino is pretty good! Never really understood the hate it gets. Nice public foreshore, reasonably attractive design. It's fine!

Attempting a Mariyung gunzel trip this evening, currently a v set and an oscar have been sitting on the platform for 20 minutes

3) Check your fucking code.

Australian banks today are infinitely leaner and more efficient than they used to be, which has occurred in response to their margins getting absolutely battered since the 90s. This is a good thing. Cheap loans are more important than wasteful branches for boomers.

Appalling stories from the Northern Beaches Hospital. It shouldn't be surprising that they're struggling with staffing when the only housing nearby are $4m mansions and public transport options are pathetic. If we want to fix our hospitals, we need to build homes for staff to live.

Fewer more cursed phrases in the English language than 'Freakonomics Analysis Needed"

Great paper on a rare topic: impact of planning changes in a city without a critical shortage of housing

There's a bloke who's now on his 5th day in a row posting multi paragraph screeds in the Balmain facebook page about how this building being painted green is an affront to the priceless heritage of the area.

My work has an in-house, walled-off version of GPT-4o for use with more sensitive data, but it always seems to give substantially worse answers than public gpt-4o. Is the data leakage really important? Or is it not really 4o but a different thing entirely

Green shoots! Unambiguously good news, but still a long way to go

bliss

making a pilgrimage this evening

Why do too many urban developments look so gross & bloated? Well start with such dismal ‘planning controls’ & go downhill fast from there. Bulk, fat footprints with so much dead space, multiple setbacks, inadequate floor to floor heights, token ‘heritage retention’… So need more design intelligence

This is the consequence of not allowing enough small units to be built! A basic unit is not the bottom of the housing spectrum, and we should let more people trade up into one.

Man I cannot endorse this abstract more

Where in Australia is the most promising candidate for land reclamation for urban development? Most of Sydney Harbour is probably too hilly, maybe Botany Bay? Somewhere in Port Phillip? Perth?

This is a great paper from Stuart and Matt responding to critiques of the research on Auckland upzoning. One part that's worth highlighting is just how broad the evidence base is on how Auckland’s upzoning increased housing supply (and reduced rents). 1/ www.motu.nz/our-research...

Important, clear thread highlighting what filtering actually is and how it actually plays out over time

not a good day of test cricket

I'm sure there were various unaccounted for harms in building those 28 stations. But those negatives probably did not outweigh the positives of swiftly building the subway. Today our whole system is set up to eliminate the negatives of action and ignore the consequences of inaction.

How it feels to ride your bike home listening to the cricket on the radio after 2 work-provided beers on a sunny spring evening

Rather than managing real constraints or minimising externalities, the reality of Australian planning is micro-managing unimportant details based on nothing but vibes. Example 1000:

Today's dogbox could be tomorrow's 'iconic' building. These 24sqm studio apartments in Melbourne are good enough to be heritage listed, but would be prohibited from being built today. thedesignfiles.net/2022/03/arch...

Reading the comments on this one, I'm struck by the contrast between people who actually live/have lived in small, dark units, who recognise that they're great, and those who just dismiss the concept out of hand. We should listen to the people most affected!

Hey, architects: hands off my dog-box apartment! It may be small and dark, but it beats the alternative | Dominic Behrens

A great defence of the "dogbox" from @dbecon.bsky.social in @guardianaustralia.bsky.social today I'm happy to pay a premium now for modcons, but having spent most of my adult life living either in boarding houses (now mostly illegal to build) or mould-ridden sharehouses, a basic apartment is better

I live in a proper dogbox of an apartment. If I had to pay for a 50sqm, well-lit unit, I probably couldn't afford to live where I do. We should let more people like me make this decision. Banning economy class doesn't mean everyone gets to fly business. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Funny, I thought the issue with supermarkets was that they were charging too much for fresh food

An absolute tour de force from someone who, when the housing wars are won and the history books are written, will have played a major role in putting Sydney onto a better path. Thank you for your service @michaelkoziol.bsky.social www.smh.com.au/national/nsw...

Highly recommend porchetta on a spit for your next camping trip

I am seriously considering sending some cash to Make Sunsets each month. I haven't seen a convincing argument against them but keen if anyone has seen any proper research suggesting they don't do what they claim to be doing.

It shouldn't be remarkable that a politician is stating simple facts like this, but it's truly remarkable how quickly the rhetoric has shifted here. The era of planners carrying water for exclusionary, wealthy suburbs is coming to an end.

never kill yourself

I am sorry to the recruiters in my linkedin DMs, a £25k a year job in the middle of London is not an attractive proposition

Live podcasts are truly one of the most menacing developments in recent history