When a city builds transit, property values go up. So why not ask landowners to help pay for it? @@landpolicy.bsky.social's Anthony Flint and Enrique Silva on value capture, a proven funding model for the Second Avenue extension and IBX. www.vitalcitynyc.org/value-captur...

"the Institute for Progress’s new Transit Abundance Playbook offers a variety of cost-reducing ideas that states can use, from planning to design to inter-agency coordination. One area the playbook highlights is an erosion of in-house capacity at public agencies..."

The U.S. has some of the highest transit construction costs in the world, and years of disinvestment in the public workforce may be part of the problem. New recommendations call for smarter planning and investing in public agencies to help bring costs down. ssti.us/2026/06/22/t...

Everyone laughs at "libidinal" and yet...

Ways to build more transit faster without spending more [@mattyglesias.bsky.social]

Be sure to check out the @ifp.bsky.social's new Transit Abundance Playbook. 15 concrete, well-researched ideas from leading transit practitioners on how to build more transit, faster, and for less. @willpoffwebster.bsky.social ifp.org/transit-abun...

Is anybody planning on getting involved the NFPA 130 process to push for wider spacing between cross-passages? ifp.org/eliminate-re...

Reupping this.

We spent the last six months working with 17 transit experts to produce 40,000 words on fixing transit delivery — because California spent 16 years (so far) and 1 billion dollars to produce 100,000 pages of environmental review. (The train still doesn't exist.)

CPE's transit program is on a roll! Here's @jmooreotto.bsky.social featured in IFP's transit abundance playbook with a proposal near and dear to my heart: You can't do long-term capital planning with capricious grant funding! ifp.org/loans-can-st...

Permitting allows utilities and local govs to delay and extract pricey concessions from projects like CAHSR. We need standardized, time-bound, and transparent administrative processes to deal with utility and other 3rd party permits, like the Italian Conference of Services: ifp.org/transit-proj...

New York spent 18x what Madrid spends, per mile, on the Second Ave Subway. America pays more for less, but we haven't known how to fix it. We published the Transit Abundance Playbook to change that, with 15 specific ideas: ifp.org/transit-abun...

My colleague @jmooreotto.bsky.social is in @ifp.bsky.social’s Transit Cost Playbook. He argues for replacing discretionary grant financing for transit projects with federal loans! The current regime shreds state planning capacity due to intermittent and capricious funding. ifp.org/loans-can-st...

The Second Avenue Subway cost more, per mile, than any transit project in history. If we can bring costs down — and our just-launched Transit Abundance Playbook lays out 15 federal levers that would do that — we can build much, much more transit, even in a hostile funding environment.

A lot to like in this Transit Abundance Playbook. ifp.org/transit-abun...

SENATE AMENDMENT TO HOUSE AMENDMENT TO SENATE AMENDMENT Looks like we're going to get a federal housing bill after all!! All it's going to take is three different votes in both chambers lol (but this looks* to be the version yet!) *pending further review on my (and Niskanen's) part

Congress has reached a bicameral housing deal! Looks like it includes all of the most important pro-supply measures and keeps the House's deal to protect BTR supply www.banking.senate.gov/newsroom/min...

Making more and more sense why Nadler endorsed against the AI hawk in NY 12

Decision Desk HQ projects Scott Wiener wins the CA US House 11 Primary #DecisionMade: 11:31 PM EDT

The BART dragon dance started as a whimsical idea for a wall scroll painting a few years ago, and is now a real life prop that I bring to Bay Area transit-related rallies and celebrations. 🚃🚃🚃

The LVT was authorized under Cuomo, but it's never been used. Very few people wrote about it before @aarmlovi.bsky.social's article for @vitalcitynyc.bsky.social, with one exception: Then-Assemblymember @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social praised value capture and § 119-r in a Jacobin interview in 2022:

New York State just authorized a land value tax that could generate billions of dollars for new transit. For the @niskanencenter.bsky.social, @aarmlovi.bsky.social and I wrote about how the renewal of § 119-r in the FY27 budget could unlock a virtuous cycle of infrastructure delivery in NYC.

Al Sharpton is pushing for the removal of the anti-build-to-rent provision in the Senate housing bill, citing the 128-group YIMBY coalition letter

The original housing packages in the Senate and House were substantive answers to the housing crisis. As Congress writes a final version, it must take the best bills from both chambers—not just settle for the overlap. See our joint Niskanen Center and Institute for Progress explainer for more:

Now that Trump has soured on the anti-build-to-rent portion of the housing package, Congress has a chance to make it as ambitious as possible — not to accept the lowest common denominator. @rohanaras.bsky.social, @awjustus.bsky.social, @willpoffwebster.bsky.social and I argue that more is more:

Oops, we eliminated due process for federal building code requirements outside the HUD code www.princeton.edu/~ota/disk1/1...

Trump is reportedly opposed to the anti-build-to-rent portion of the 21st Century ROAD housing package:

People should really stop comparing the 4-year, 1933–1937 *build* time of the Golden Gate Bridge to the decades long *study-to-completion* timelines of modern projects. The Golden Gate Bridge took 19 years (1918–1937) by that metric!

Is the ROAD to Housing Act an anti-housing bill? More than it was in February, at least. @willpoffwebster.bsky.social and I explain the anti-institutional-investor provision, its many loopholes and unintended consequences, and how to fix it: ifp.org/road-section...

10/ Our writeup includes amendment language that would fix these problems. There are real issues with large landlords (just like there are with small landlords), but Section 901 doesn't address any of them. ifp.org/road-section...

1/ The Senate created the biggest pro-housing bill in years. Why did they add a provision at the last minute that discourages 100K-130K homes per year (7-10% of all US housing supply)?

The optimal Land Value Tax implies the existence of a minimally optimal Building Value Tax. I wrote about how a tax revolt led a Hawaiian island to invert its LVT — and how states considering their own LVTs can avoid similar backlash. www.niskanencenter.org/aloha-to-lan...

I hate this shit so much. My family rents, and we are also people! www.nytimes.com/2026/03/25/b...

Land value tax fixes this

In 2025, Jürgen Habermas—perhaps Europe’s most well-known living philosopher—spoke with Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins about faith, reason, and the public sphere. www.thenation.com/article/cult...

100+ pro-housing groups across 30+ states have signed a letter celebrating the pro-supply measures in the ROAD package, but calling for a fix to the anti-BTR provisions:

Excellent speech from @schatz.bsky.social Schatz on the importance of fixing anti-build-to-rent provision in the ROAD to Housing Act (h/t @pewilliams.bsky.social) (1/3)

I talked with @birdyword.bsky.social about his excellent book "The Land Trap: A New History of the World's Oldest Asset." We covered the Chinese real estate bubble, Singapore's escape from the trap, and the age-old question: would a land value tax solve this?

I'm in the Sun Sentinel, making the case that DeSantis's tax cuts are insufficiently conservative. www.sun-sentinel.com/2025/12/09/a...

Conference on Henry George and Georgism at Wharton in May: philevents.org/event/show/1...

LVT endorsement from @repbillfoster.bsky.social: "One way to encourage [housing density] is with a land value tax... We could structure the federal tax code to encourage a land value-based tax"

My colleagues @awjustus.bsky.social and @aarmlovi.bsky.social have a new article out connecting electoral design to local housing politics. They show how proportional representation in Cambridge has sidestepped the pitfalls of both district based and traditional first-past-the-post councils

Sam Altman’s promotion of Henry George’s land tax reflects a surprising revival of Georgism in Silicon Valley. Our essay of the week traces how anti-statist thinkers reappropriated George’s critique of rentier capitalism. By @reed-schwartz.bsky.social in @asteriskmag.bsky.social buff.ly/qBLC9vR

There may be only one policy proposal that @maxspeak.bsky.social and Mike Duggan (and I!) agree on -- a land value tax. Henry George for New York City open.substack.com/pub/sawicky/...

I wrote for Asterisk Magazine about the *other* outsider politician who unites Silicon Valley billionaires, Zionists, and the American Right: Henry George. asteriskmag.com/issues/10/th...

Jane Jacobs on her research process: "I picture myself as a caterpillar munching, munching, munching, munching away in a forest, digesting all kinds of leaves, and in the process being informed of what's there."