The Boston Globe Editorial Board is running a whole series on the state’s excessive building code regulation over the next three weeks – single-stair, Massachusetts’s unusually low high-rise definition, and the mess of different septic system rules www.bostonglobe.com/2025/09/21/o...

Walking through Boston Common, I came upon this quote from 19th century abolitionist Wendell Phillips, above a statue of him. Seems relevant to these times: “Whether in chains or in laurels liberty knows nothing but victories,”

Well, if there is one thing that is clear from Tuesday's preliminary election results in Boston it's that we should build bike lanes everywhere.

In a new paper, I try to resolve the counterintuitive evidence of Meehl’s “clinical vs statistical prediction” problems: Statistics only wins because the game is rigged.

Important 🔥🔥 must-read from @beenwrekt.bsky.social ⬇️ www.argmin.net/p/the-banal-...

Today a driver with TLC plates almost hit me while I was on a bike. The Waymos cannot come fast enough. Regulate congestion regardless of who causes it, and get humans out from behind the wheel of cars. They kill over 40,000 people per year, it’s just not safe to have humans driving motor vehicles.

The effects of climate change are too important to be sloppy, in my view. I should note that I'm far from the first to point out this stuff w/r/t hurricanes and tornadoes. The first I saw was a historian in the 1980s whose name I've forgotten. Point is, this is a long-known error.

Unfortunate that the Wash Post puts up this kind of chart without explanation. Most of the graph covers a time before satellite and other observation tools let us reliably see hurricanes, and so we're picking up a lot more of them, which biases the numbers. Same with tornadoes before Doppler radar.

god shoutout to being 25, living in dc, and taking day trips up to baltimore to eat crabs and crush natty bohs bsky.app/profile/pjcr...

This is a horrific story. Driver hit him and left him, injured and helpless, and nobody stopped to help until paramedics happened by @universalhub.com @stacos.bsky.social #BostonVehicularViolence #VisionZeroBoston We need protected bike lanes! @wutrain.bsky.social @clrhenrysantana.bsky.social

Boston has higher rents than Jersey City. Yet JC builds 4 times as many apartments per year despite being 1/3 the size. The Wu administration blames 'economic conditions' for the housing slowdown in Boston. The true reason is policy, and JC should avoid Boston's failed housing policies.

RIP Tom Lehrer. He was said to have called Little Boxes "the most sanctimonious song ever written," making him by definition the ur-YIMBY.

the minute universities start using class preferences, reactionaries will sue them because the actual goal is to make elite institutions inaccessible to everyone other than rich white kids

The field of neuroscience views the goal of human genetics as "finding genes". This is an outdated view. In whole genome studies of rare variants, finding genes is the easy part. The more interesting and important goal is to map out the causal pathway from genes to brain function to cognitive traits

my modest disagreement is that i think it is important to signal virtue even if, privately, you are a piece of shit. performing decency is an important part of maintaining the norm that decency is part of a well ordered society.

The accessible American mid-level state school with a 60%+ admissions rate that still is able to go round for round with everything but the absolute best universities that the rest of world has to offer is a world-historic triumph that these fucking clowns are burning down due to their ivy neuroses

Two thoughts: Endless process and planning are incredibly costly. Just build the pretty good project, don't insist on utter perfection. There's no reason we cannot afford to pay for this with Pike tolls alone.

I’ve helped co-moderate two City Council forums the past two nights. My general takeaway is that I’m at the point where I can’t support candidates, even ones I like personally, whose first instinct is No. As in No to new housing, No to bus lanes, etc. We have enough No in our city. We need more Yes.

nonsense decision

Sausalito is a perfect example of why so-called "inclusionary zoning" requirements often don't accomplish their goals. In 14 years, the policy resulted in one(!) deed-restricted affordable unit!

About 1 out of 5 of US counties have now "heavily restricted or outright banned" new wind or solar plants. What can you say? I mean, "Hooray! The US is winning the war against its own infrastructure!" Good reporting from @heatmap.news

Good steps, BUT, why are we saving this decrepit, depressing, and outright dangerous old derelict? I don't care who designed it, if it's a bad building, it's a bad building.

This is what happens when the City of Boston leaves street safety up to local NIMBYs and sparsely attended community meetings instead of ministerial planning and quick build-test solutions.

All the usual caveats about trusting proprietary rent data apply here (it tends to capture the high end of the market best, since that’s what gets listed on major national listing sites), but, this is a lot:

!!!

“Build more hotels” is a direct complement to “build more homes”.

We need red light cameras so badly in Boston. It’s an absolute gong show out here on the roads and seems to be getting worse.

W.E.B. Du Bois on Robert E. Lee: “Either he knew what slavery meant when he helped maim and murder thousands in its defense, or he did not. If he did not he was a fool. If he did, Robert Lee was a traitor and a rebel–not indeed to his country, but to humanity and humanity’s God.”

The eternal battle between New York City leftists and New York City moderates to find out who is dumber and more self-defeating.

I’m over it, public transportation is NOT a privilege, it’s a necessity for thousands of people across our city. It’s how people get to work, school, medical appointments, and grocery stores. We’ve become far too cardependent, and the cost of that dependence falls hardest on working-class residents.

The progress on housing in the Bay Area does appear completely remarkable. Credit to the dedicated YIMBYs who pushed to make it happen, and here's hoping we can even get half of this here!!!

“There is such a thing — especially in this city — as too much “process” and not nearly enough action. In a downtown that cries out for attention and a new burst of energy, the new plan for downtown is a good start.” - @bostonglobe.com Editorial Board www.bostonglobe.com/2025/06/06/o...

this story is just a great illustration of NIMBY nihilism. at core, these people have no vision for anything. they simply oppose change for the sake of opposition. (i also think there is an element of death denial here — if i can prevent all physical changes i can deny the reality of my mortality)

Harvard Chabad: Now that you illegally and likely discriminatorily denied us a variance, we're suing and coming back with a bigger proposal and claiming RLIUPA. www.cambridgeday.com/2025/05/31/u... Incredible. Great use of an underutilized tool.

The proportion of p-values between .01 and .05 declined in psychology over the last decade, a strengthening of credibility. Papers with fewer fragile p-values are cited more. Higher ranked journals assoc. with > improvement, but not higher ranked universities. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

I can't believe drive-through country of Connecticut will reform parking statewide before we will.

This is some of the best YIMBY messaging and policy explanation out there.

WOW. Federal judge orders the release of Kseniia Petrova, the Russian researcher detained by ICE for months and recently charged for allegedly smuggling frog embryos into the United States.

"The Consolidation-Disruption Index is a measuring device invented by scientists to detect revolutionary breakthroughts. It has two remarkable features: 1) It cannot detect revolutionary breakthroughs, and 2) scientists continue using it anyway."

open.substack.com/pub/scottvan... New in Contrarian Boston: @universalhub.com #mapoli #massachusetts #bospoli #boston @gregmaynard.bsky.social #massandcass #localnews #SouthEnd #homesales #homeprices #GreaterBoston

This is what taking the housing crisis seriously looks like.

“What do you call your act?” “The California liberals!”

okay sure so it worked in Denver and in Austin and it worked for downtown Oakland and for Sacramento and yes, it’s worked for decades in Tokyo but how can we be *sure* that building a lot more homes will make California a more affordable place to live??

3 days ago RFK Jr. told the CDC to stop recommending water fluoridation, claiming it was a neurotoxin (this is a lie). Turns out he also just eliminated the CDC’s entire Lead Program, and now lead poisoned children in Milwaukee are just on their own. Lead IS a neurotoxin and harms brain development

1800 homes. That's progress.

Now let's do Charles Street, it's been 7 years. Or are the anti-bike lane Beacon Hill NIMBYs still too important (or donating too much to Wu) to be ignored?

the Trans Pacific Partnership was good and I’m tired of pretending it’s not

Data Compiled By @walkmass.bsky.social Indicate That Older Adults, Non-White Neighborhoods Face Higher Risks of Traffic Violence In Mass. - mass.streetsblog.org/2025/04/02/o... #mapoli

Why we need minimum lot size reform in MA: All of these suburban towns have great, walkable cores. They just banned any walkable housing in them sometime between 1940 and 1970. Legalize 1/4 acre or 1/10 acre lots, our towns will grow, and we can even have new centers!