It's weird that many places call themselves a "city of neighbourhoods" where diversity is good and they fear a "one size fits all" approach to change. But, at a neighbourhood level, a building not "fitting in" with the neighbourhood character is a great crime because everyone must conform.

Construction productivity has declined (!) in the post-war period while the rest of the economy's productivity has increased! This has made the cost of construction outstrip the overall price index by a lot.

I've caught my instagram algorithm at a very Chinese urban planning time of its life. www.instagram.com/reel/DaiVy-f...

One week into SB 79 taking effect, and there are already over 200 new homes proposed in Palo Alto across 5 buildings. The last year in which Palo Alto permitted more than 200 new apartments was 2007. www.paloaltoonline.com/palo-alto/20...

Interesting YouTube video where a small developer itemizes the cost of moving from the "residential" code to the "building code." Some caveats here are that this is not really the incremental cost of the model codes (model codes require 13D sprinklers in the "residential" building, state/local...

While building housing is better than not, do not fall for this psy-op where ADUs are celebrated as a win! Adult children living in backyard ADUs out of necessity is still a moral tragedy and a failure of our political system to deliver the results the people need. apple.news/Ab7v_y5LETz2...

Loosening the rules against single-stair buildings could significantly increase the supply of much-needed housing in Massachusetts….The report “suggests that in Greater Boston alone, an additional 130,000 new homes could be built if single-stair construction were allowed in 4- to 6-story buildings…“

The most fantastical part of Silo is when they build silos in Georgia 144 levels deep but with only one stair.

Random thought: I’m concerned about AI and, if it’s promise is fulfilled, the income inequality implications. One bright spot of this iteration of Big Tech is that it’s so asset-heavy. Data centers are land. Land is the easiest and longest-standing thing governments know how to tax.

Each month of permitting delay adds ~1% to building costs. Preapproved 'pattern book' plans cut weeks-to-months off that timeline and up to $10K in upfront design costs. 40+ communities now offer them. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/22/y...

A befitting epilogue to my China trip: at the airport, my battery pack was confiscated because it didn’t have China’s proprietary CCC certification which is meant to compete with UL. TIC rent-seeking everywhere!

YIMBYism works

Requiring for-profit developers to rent a percentage of new homes to poor people at a loss is bad, kludgy neoliberal policy that attempts to outsource a key state function to private market actors. Instead of this de facto tax on new housing, the state should tax property to fund housing subsidies.

You're imagining that a walkable city involves a municipal council coming together to do comprehensive city planning, but it historically involved the relative absence of zoning and free commercial activity that allowed people to build and open up shop wherever needed.

Say it with me: Build. More. Housing.

Will Stancil co-authored this paper showing that "artist housing" can be mostly be seen as expensively subsidized affordable housing earmarked to white people. Pretty good research!

Contemporaneous criticism of San Francisco’s 1978 citywide downzonings noted that it would price out the poor and the middle class.

In this house: 1. People > cars 2. homes > parking 3. Wiener > Chan

Every time I go to China I get housing radicalized.

Officially too housing-brained.

In which I discuss the sources of ICC-ES's market power and potential reforms. moinmybackyard.substack.com/p/icc-es-the...

A fascinating story about how UL's testing monopoly was broken by a persistent decades-long fight from a Maryland electrical engineer with only some high school education, Leonard Frier. From OSHA's establishment in 1970, a truly competitive TIC market was allowed only after 1995.

So cool that the green new deal guy is endorsing the Supervisor who wouldn’t take away a few dozen parking spaces to speed up the 38 Geary bus line, which has a higher daily ridership than *all of Caltrain.*

In this article, researcher Tyler Pullen notes that while modular construction offers a possible way to bring down housing construction costs, many investors and lenders still see it as unproven and are reluctant to be first adopters.

China built a 26 story building in 5 days with 100 workers using modular. indiandefencereview.com/china-modula...

The ICC is an interesting vertically integrated organization in an industry characterized by horizontal integration (TIC). The International Accreditation Service (IAS) is a subsidiary of the ICC. It's an ISO 17011 accreditation body which means it can accredit ISO 17065 labs like ICC-ES.

Everybody, everywhere is talking about single-stair

How do we get cultural critics to stop grounding all of their criticism of art/ music/ public life in the scourge of “commodification” or “gentrification” or whatever. You can just say shit is tasteless or common or boring. Not every uninspired cafe or trend Actually Says A Lot About Capitalism.

Probably the best way to stop corporate landlord consolidation is by reforming land use rules so that more, smaller firms can enter high-cost rental markets. But neo-Brandeisians tend to reject that solution for mysterious reasons.

Turns out that lengthy, highly discretionary entitlement processes for new homes make those homes more expensive. Almost by design

Fun fact: The ICC is an ANSI-compliant standards development organization (SDO), like ASTM, ASCE, IEEE or UL. But…

I have literally had a person working for my apartment company tell me that management wants to jack up rents but couldn't do so because they have too many vacancies. Supply and demand apply to housing.

Hey Siri, set alarm for when a euro posts about how our fire trucks are too large.

Rent went up 10% so I’m going on vacation.

SB 79, which allows apartments up to 9 stories tall near major transit stops, goes into effect on 7/1. If you or someone you know is struggling to cope, help is here! Cognitive behavioral therapy can help you process strong emotions in a healthier way: healthy.kaiserpermanente.org/health-welln...

Construction productivity today is about the same as it was in 1948. That's 80 years of stagnation. Worse yet, it rose from 1948 to 1970 but then has *fallen* since then.

California, you have trained for years for this moment. I believe in your ability to forestall the construction of one (1) building for an indeterminable amount of time

Hammurabi's building codes:

"Mausoleum" is an excellent arrow to add to your rhetorical quiver. Instead of "[city] isn't a museum," say, "This will turn [city] into a mausoleum."

RAND: Measure ULA blocked 9,000+ new homes and cost LA $452M in forgone revenue. Fewer homes mean higher rents for everyone. Targeted reform could produce 19,000 more homes while preserving 72% of revenue. www.rand.org/pubs/researc...

I watched the Barber of Seville last night (as one does when they’re better than you) and the set design made me constantly think about how much I want a courtyard home.

A few months ago this campaign was a long shot. Now, we're advancing to the general election. We got here because people across Los Angeles believe in something better: a city where Angelenos can afford to live, work, and build a future. Join our movement at nithyaforthecity.com

Yes, it's annoying that NYC does not have enough votes at the ICC. But the rabbit hole goes deeper than that!

What’s the best way for a non-construction person to have an impact on construction costs?

Hey Siri, overturn Euclid.

It sounds so over-the-top but I really do believe that building housing (and creating abundance in general) is the cure to defeating American fascism.

“Vox pivoted its message away from immigrants taking jobs and toward immigrants taking homes. Its leaders began blaming the country’s housing crisis on foreigners” — That’s how Housing Nationalism operates, as a platform to activate reactionary nationalism as @lausterna.bsky.social and I explained.

“…the International Code Council (ICC) is a strange beast in the pantheon of American organizations.… It is hard to think of another private institution in American life that has near copy-and-paste access to the lawbooks.“ #ICC #BuildingCode