like seeing a celebrity @stephenjacobsmith.com

Truly one of the most stupid bipartisan policies out there

Europeans have this attitude that they are morally superior for negotiating prices down, but we are massively subsidizing their healthcare sectors, like with defense spending. And like with defense, he who pays the piper calls the tune. And we're asking for some really bad music right now.

I think this is mostly San Francisco finally shrugging off the pandemic, but it is *really* funny that rent prices in San Francisco shot up *immediately* after the city banned RealPage and other algorithmic price setting software. My pre trends are incredible!

“In medical research, there’s a practice of ending a study early when the results are too striking to ignore…When an intervention works this clearly, you change what you do.” www.nytimes.com/2025/12/02/o... (🎁🔗)

The real value of Ticketmaster is in providing public relation insulation for popular artists

The council member makes their opinion clear before the vote, and the applicant pulls the application if it’s not going to pass, so they don’t waste money on lawyers. Do the authors know this is a BS stat? Or maybe worse, they don’t and don’t realize how much housing they’re killing…?

As much as the average bluesky user sucks, the CEO rocks. How did this happen?

You could try a poster’s strike. I hear that works

that's why you bring the US flag to protests, folks

Getting there, but it still dedicates each bin to a specific building. We need these to be city-owned and available to all buildings, including smaller ones who can’t fill one on their own. Then owners need to be able to send residents to them directly, so they don’t need to pay supers

We should perhaps run the 7 and L OPTO

LA’s firefighter union has come out with a four-page letter opposing single-stair buildings. I’m going to respond to a few of the points within it. 🧵

The anti-OPTO bill shoved through by the TWU is bad law and Hochul should veto it.

I added to the chorus of criticism of the NYC City Council's plot to kill city charter reform, for City Journal: www.city-journal.org/article/new-...

If you are so blinkered to think that Mark Andreessen and Peter Thiel can never like a good idea, and so any idea they like must be cast into the fire, then you are going to make yourself stupid.

Astoria’s 3,200-unit Innovation QNS is dead, done in by New York’s inclusionary zoning and labor requirements. It’s not enough to just overcome anti-density NIMBYism – this city’s politicians also have to accept that they have to let the market set prices and wages if they want enough housing.

New York City's Rent Stabilization system is a form of rent control.

@stephenjacobsmith.com Fun one today. This shed is for that tower. Maybe they're planning to see who can throw equipment off the top of the building the furthest?

The 14th Street busway (2019) and congestion pricing evaporated traffic, so we worked with the Meatpacking District to install a new pedestrian promenade with five large decks, reclaiming 16,000 sq ft of space for people. If in Manhattan, go check it out and have a seat!

Something I appreciate about unions is they come right out and say it. NYC’s hotel workers’ union says the 2021 special permit requirement for new hotels (really, a ban) was to halt competition among hotels from driving down the price of a night’s stay in NYC hotelworkers.org/article/a-re...

It's funny to think that fighting chain stores in cities used to be this righteous progressive cause. Sorry if it offends your aesthetic sensibilities, but quality chains are what makes a neighborhood attractive to normal people.

Eric Adams’s City of Yes rezoning is fulfilling its “a little bit more housing in every neighborhood” promise – this project looks to be 20% larger than it could’ve been before, which given the very incremental increase in density, likely made the difference between viability and not

Critics of SB 79, Scott Wiener’s bill to legalize apartments near public transit, decry the high price of the “luxury” homes that would be allowed under the law. They argue that we should build *affordable* housing instead of market rate. This common argument deserves an answer.

You all know I love the inspirational power of a great “before & after” street or place transformation. Here’s a before, middle and after transformation, showing the temporary and then permanent changes. The evolution of a school street in Bratislava, Slovakia, HT @holz-bau.bsky.social. Very smart.

Scaling fines to income is reasonable but to me the main thing is they need to revoke people’s licenses and seize their vehicles when they repeatedly break the rules. This just seems like the Council’s impulse to be soft on enforcing anything at work.

obviously this is terrible for democracy and the rule of law in America but I'm also offended on behalf of the prisoner's dilemma

It's amazing how moral panics work. Also, the quote below. Oh, San Francisco. Where the neighborhood has been fighting off anything new for more than 50 years.

Climate change is real and getting worse, so we're eliminating red tape to rebuild low-density homes in high-risk areas (and requiring insurance sales) while retaining the regulations for high-density structures in low-risk areas and for clean energy production and transmission.

did i buy an expensive burdensome object and need a place to put it? i did. this is not a public problem. it is my problem. i have to find a place where i can keep it when i'm not using it and it is my problem to pay for the externalities of using it. i like it, but it's my problem.

Little retrofit elevator in our building, big enough for two people standing with luggage (or, I think, one person seated in a manual wheelchair, although there were other barriers in the building to that). A million reasons ways the US regulatory system forbids this – no acceptance of global…

Big news for G train denizens: In the first quarter of 2025, the MTA is putting two five-car open gangway train sets on the line

In fact, there are barely any fatal fires in post-2000 buildings of any height. Tearing down old buildings and replacing them with new ones makes the city safer. The union and NIMBYs like Ariola have ulterior motives unrelated to fire safety – reporters should balance this fearmongering with facts.

gimme yule gimme fire don me now with gay attire

ok I'm listening

“Columbus, Ohio, now allows for residential buildings up to 16 stories tall on certain streets near existing and future transit. New York City’s proposal, by contrast, would allow buildings of up to five stories near transit in low-rise residential neighborhoods.” www.thecity.nyc/2024/12/03/n...

It's just surreal that the consensus of NYC leadership is recommitting to a command that housing and cars must get bundled together, near transit. What are they afraid of — that people might make different choices?

NEW COLUMN: How modernizing our subway train designs can not only boost capacity and improve riders sense of safety, it can also put an end to the awful dangerous trend of subway surfing -- www.curbed.com/article/subw...

Reminded once again how hilariously overbuilt the Hudson Yards 7 station is.

Excellent explainer. It's a pretty good sign of Hochul's motonormativity that the overnight tolls (9 p.m. to 5 a.m. on weekdays and 9 p.m. to 9 a.m. on weekends) will now be $2.25 per car. For comparison, subway fare is $2.90 per person and there's no overnight discount.

that's a lot of area of Chicago that bans apartments and affordable housing!

Inbox: NYS issues a “request for information” on advanced nuclear. Basically putting out feelers to potential developers and others with an interest in seeing the state develop new nukes

Omg scientific American comeback story?

Right on time

It’s such a non-solution, because students live more than the one block from schools where crossing guards are positioned. The entire concept is basically conceding that you are not going to make to safe for students to walk to school, and then paying a bunch of money to solve 7% of the problem.

This is exactly what the NYC subway is like, and it's beautiful (trimmed video by Ian O'Connor via instagram.com/p/DAbHW7txiiv)

Really and truly massively chutzpahdik of Alstom to leverage Buy America to sue over Brightline West not using the Acela II trainsets they're massively late on delivering to Amtrak! The regulatory state needs to figure out how not to let itself be used this way. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Tired: NYC got rid of dining sheds because the Mayor loves cars Wired: NYC got rid of dining sheds because the new approval process allows someone in City Hall to shakedown bars and restaurant owners for approval

Glad Twitter is now regularly picking up my beat: let’s legalize more hotels. Your goal as a city should be to have as many hotels as possible. Hotel guests pay taxes and consume almost no services.