These buildings outside downtown Silver Spring, Maryland are a glimpse of a past that actually existed, and therefore of a possible future. They are so interesting because in them, you can see how the timeline split right around this period.

Maryland voters also support tenant protections, including stronger fire safety requirements, rent stabilization, good cause eviction, and ending breed bans in rentals. These can, and should, go hand-in-hand with more housing production! ggwash.org/view/102300/...

Maryland voters want solutions, and they like what Governor Wes Moore has proposed in his Housing Growth and Affordability Agenda–like making it easier to build duplexes and townhomes, as well as smaller single-family homes on smaller lots. ggwash.org/view/102300/...

@acornpark.bsky.social and I have been working on this project for a few months now and I'm stoked to share it with you! once again, Marylanders say housing prices are a problem and support reforms that the General Assembly is considering *right now*–

Once again, opposing housing near you is a fundamentally conservative proposition, and a lot of people on the broader left who share the thoughts in this video need to take some inventory of themselves.

i want to live in a walkable neighborhood, but i don’t want to see anyone. i want no more greenfield development, but redeveloping existing neighborhoods is gentrification. i want high quality housing that is affordable to me, but i don’t want “affordable housing” or “luxury” units. and i vote.

as I look out at my still unplowed street, I'm bummed to announce that we have to cancel our @ggwash.org happy hour tomorrow night at Denizens Brewing Company in Riverdale. the good news: we've rescheduled for Wednesday, February 11! see you there? secure.everyaction.com/nRncO9C6W0q0...

The GGWash staff read and discussed Richard Schragger's City Power during our lunch breaks. Naturally, we all have takes to share on it.

thinking about this

A very odd part of the housing debate is that the people who oppose replacing old run-down buildings with big new buildings because the old buildings are affordable are also the people who deny that "filtering" causes new buildings to get less expensive as they age.

in the immortal words of michael scott, “i can and i have”

left nimbyism always deadends in neo-malthusianism, except for the times it deadends in paleo-malthusianism

we did a ton of advocacy at @ggwash.org this year and in this post @alexbaca.bsky.social @kaihall10.bsky.social @acornpark.bsky.social look back at all of the things we advocated for ggwash.org/view/101936/...

MPD just announced during the December Pedestrian Advisory Council meeting that they took a car off the street during morning commute today that had $205,000 worth of speeding tickets.

“Oh, you think this neighborhood should change? How long have you lived here?” is just “nice band t shirt. Name three of their albums” for NIMBYs.

Good morning to everyone who has received redacted records in response to a public records request.

i hold the apparently controversial view that door dashers are beholden to the same traffic laws as the rest of us

Most of how local government works is conducting a listening session that only attracts the most insane and most unemployed 5% of a city who emphatically tell anyone who will listen that they want everything in one bag, but they don't want that bag to be heavy.

Pictured: a prior generation's cookie-cutter housing

I expect this one is going to get me a few spicy emails. I'm glad the UBCP passed, and I am thankful for all those who worked on getting it across the finish line. Nonetheless: we must be bolder.

Drivers have *repeatedly* hit & injured young people here (16th St near the Summit Hills Apartments). Maybe MD SHA could explain how people are supposed to cross to/from the bus stops here, without "dart/dash"-ing or being "in roadway improperly".

As soon as a mayor says, “Yes this is allowable under the rules we designed but they shouldn’t do it anyway for X boutique reasons,” they’ve expanded the permission structure for NIMBY objections to all kinds of projects.

all too often in MoCo, equity means “a solution nobody likes or benefits from”

great news! @natalifg.bsky.social is one of our most decisive and morally guided leaders on the council

I have come to see stadium politics as a real commentary on state capacity and political imagination. In a world where avg citizens see govt as ineffectual, stadiums become the only conceivable public works project, onto which they then project decades worth of hopes and dreams.

Ask the Montgomery County Council to treat transit riders fairly - by PASSING THE UNIVERSITY BOULEVARD CORRIDOR PLAN with the provision (Option C) that converts a travel lane in each direction for a wide sidepath for pedestrians and cyclists! actionbutton.nationbuilder.com/share/SPK-QE...

ok i’ll bite… who’s muriel bowser

The 28th and final Purple Line vehicle has arrived in Maryland. All rail in Prince George’s is complete. But still over a year out from opening — a little more track and a lot of testing still left to be done.

What was I gonna do, NOT write about the rat video???

Killer piece from Casey Anderson that also doubles as a solid critique of standpoint epistemology’s function in public discourse

chat is this good

Pete Rodrigue brings in some really fascinating numbers to contemplate re: the fate of streateries, and you always know it's a spicy @alexbaca.bsky.social take when dril tweets are invoked ggwash.org/view/101524/...

between the flyovers, the parades, and the armed soldiers on patrol, I have become completely ploughshares-pilled. please let it all stop

taking transit from silver spring to rockville today, which means, in my colleague @kaihall10.bsky.social’s words, i’m paying a hefty time tax

Urbanism—the notion that cities are good, that we should build housing in the dense walkable neighborhoods where people want to live, and that urban governance should prioritize city residents’ quality of life over suburban drivers’ convenience—remains a radical political program in America.

bad enough that the editorial board seems to be confused about which Washington their paper serves, but 'does not own a car' as a supposed mark of a candidate's unseriousness is in itself unserious. jeff really destroyed this paper

it doesn’t surprise me but it does shock me to see how much people gleefully fantasize about killing cyclists in the replies of local content farm posts

Literally this meme?!

I related to this a lot as a downtown Silver Spring resident who works in Navy Yard.

Leading medical publication the British Medical Journal recognises SUVs as a danger to public health in a new editorial co-authored by T&E’s James Nix: bit.ly/4hVDlBC Large SUVs are a danger to pedestrians, cyclists & other drivers. It's time to take action to reduce their presence in urban areas.

The contributors had some fun while staff was away in St. Michaels for a retreat, but our retreat was an incredible experience. GGWash has expanded a lot even since I joined the staff 6 months ago, but we have a much better sense of what to do with this newfound power. Watch this space, as they say

Democrats notched big wins around the country in yesterday’s election – but another trend, nationally and locally, is that pro-homes candidates also prevailed.

I frankly blame Marc Elrich and the old housing moratorium for annoying me and making me go to “one meeting” and leading my life down this road

IRS agents. what's going on in DC is truly shameless

watching The Exorcist III and enjoying all the shots of 1989 Georgetown

at the end of my street just now, at a stop sign, a driver thought my dog and I were walking too slow in the crosswalk so she decided to just go ahead anyway. why should I be surprised? Montgomery County has shown her there will never be a consequence for it

the dtss chain restaurant curse claims another victim

Check this one out! It was quite a labor of love for me but I am proud of how it turned out.