the much harder version

My newest op-ed, in @nyc.streetsblog.org: nyc.streetsblog.org/2025/09/15/w...

Today, CER launches our paper “ElectroLink: Modern Passenger Rail Service for Southern California.” ElectroLink shows how electrification, level boarding and through running can speed up trips, improve access for all riders, and bind together the region. ⚡♿🚴 calelectricrail.org/electrolink-...

The talk is tonight!

There's definitely a tension between the "local control" and "state override" pro-housing factions, but at some level I think this is kind of a nonsequitur. This got kicked off by Laura Foote's letter to Chuck Marohn of Strong Towns arguing for state preemption... 1/

San Francisco local politics: a knife fight in a phone booth.

Marohn's approach is great for towns, but it's not equal to the challenge of a metropolis. "Gentle density" is great, but it's nowhere near enough when a copy pasted 1200 square foot tract home from 1958 costs $2 million.

G gets you New York, the Bay Area and Los Angeles. How is this even a discussion?

"A lot of advocates/activists, seem like this: like they secretly *like* the idea of their pet problem being an ongoing catastrophe. Like they find validation and purpose not in its solution, but in its existence." thedeletedscenes.substack.com/p/yimbys-wan...

@idothethinking.bsky.social analysis of SB79 leads me to retract my wholesale opposition to it. It has more nuance than I realized. The way legislation is communicated divides between all-in and total rejection, I realize. Owens' approach cuts through that. open.substack.com/pub/darrello...

NYC people: I have a talk at TOMORROW 9/17 at Cordelia, 942 Bergen St, Brooklyn. Nearest subways: C/S at Franklin Avenue.

Want to see why #SB79 is such a big deal? Here's a map of where are apartments are now going to be legal near one Orange Line station in LA.

SB79 maps, take 2: what got upzoned near the California Ave Caltrain in Palo Alto, where a 1275 square foot bungalow will cost you over $2.5 million. This is why SB79 is a huge deal - it opened up a whole bunch of areas that were previously off-limits. (attn: @nextdoorsv.bsky.social )

Want to see why #SB79 is such a big deal? Here's a map of where are apartments are now going to be legal near one Orange Line station in LA.

Does anyone have a good English-language book on the how the antiparochi/polykatoikia system in postwar Athens worked?

i do not like the phillies, but i do like philadelphia.

I collected my thoughts, and a summary of SB 79, into a blog post. Long story short: it's some really good shit, even with the compromises necessary to get it through the Legislature.

I collected my thoughts, and a summary of SB 79, into a blog post. Long story short: it's some really good shit, even with the compromises necessary to get it through the Legislature.

After 8 years, we did it! SB 79, the biggest upzoning bill in state history, just passed the Legislature. Brief 🧵, with some important thank yous. 1/x

Congratulations to our friends in California for passing SB79, which will allow new homes to be built near every rapid transit station in the state. New York has some catching up to do — Albany ended the 2025 session in June without passing a single zoning reform bill.

I never thought I would see something like this in my lifetime. California finally decided to rip the band-aid off and fix the state's zoning.

"we just assume that it happens, and no one else is in the room where it happens."

Watching the SB79 concurrence speeches and it reminds me of the line from Hamilton ... "The art of the trade, how the sausage gets made, we just assume that it happens - and no one else is in the room where it happens."

Anyone know when SB79 is up for concurrence in the CA State Senate?

California’s big bill to add more housing near transit is down to the wire. If you’re a Californian (especially in this district) call your legislator to plead for SB 79

🚨NEW RESULTS (w/ Slattery & Nober) - When gov't engineers retire, highway projects cost more: the engineers pay for themselves 6 times over - Improving gov’t engineer quality from the 25th to 75th percentile reduces costs by 14%, equal to 3x avg. engineer pay Paper: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

These guys are unserious clowns. Most of the unoccupied housing is not where the jobs are. Pray tell, how is someone living in rural Kansas supposed to find a job in San Francisco?

authors: check to see if you're in the database. my book is definitely there.

reminder: i'm giving a talk in my neighborhood in brooklyn next week. no ticket required. see you there?

Unpopular opinion: Platforms should be liable for the content posted by users on their websites. A thread on some legal history as to why the Web ended up filled with such slop and Silicon Valley these days DGAF: 1/

"This brazen gambit should fail — for two reasons. First, the ballot language is plenty clear. Second, the BOE has no power to reject proposed charter revisions."

given the fact that the AI companies haven't been able to turn a profit, this is unsurprising, but ominous.

Great post by Addison.

 Is your dating app missing something? Have you had trouble finding a fuckboy or a gold-digger on the Internet? Never fear: now there's Bidsy!

Oh look, I found cities' plan to fix the housing crisis:

Sorry, mate, but local control is why LA is in such a mess these days. This is why you need to make $225,000 a year to afford to buy the average home in LA... and the average family income in LA is $80,000. Local governments screwed the pooch, and haven't done anything to clean up their mess.

A simple way to improve American downtowns: Make one-way arterials bidirectional. Doing so will improve safety, boost retail sales, and attract pedestrians. Me, in Bloomberg 🧵

This was also the point of Barry Friedman, my old constitutional law professor. The courts have neither the power of the purse nor the sword.

@mayor.nyc.gov is a corrupt, incompetent jackass, but his rezoning policy was legitimately good. I can sign on to Stephen's idea.

Old, exhausted shopping malls provide a whole lot of opportunity because the land is so underused - but ultimately, you have to build stuff on the parking lots. (My canonical example - linked - is the County Fair Mall in Woodland, CA, where I hung out in high school a lot.) 1/🧵

The amended version of SB79 is out, and I'm disappointed. It's better than the alternative - but the Assembly opened up a massive loophole by allowing cities to pass "alternative plans" with "equivalent net zoned capacity". 1/

This kind of thing was the norm in the 19th century as well. Political parties, especially in immigrant communities, drummed up the vote by providing concrete individual benefits to their supporters, not just _government_ benefits.

"What if we had decent ideas, but expressed them in the most annoying ways possible?"

California #yimby types - does anyone have the floor version of SB 79? I'm curious what's in the bill

+1. One thing that I continually say is, if you want old-fashioned neighborhoods, you have to actually build things that way.

This. A hundred times this. It often takes a lifetime to become an overnight success.

Minor league baseball on a lazy summer evening is the best. Go Cyclones. (#lgm?)