The basic appeal of ultraleft & left nimby (overlapping) is status - "I'm cooler than you." Actual leftists calling out their threatens their status. Greedy developers do not. That's why yimby makes them so much angrier than the developer does.

Knock-out panel designed into the Bethesda Red Line station by far-sighted* @wmata.com engineers half a century ago and opened last weekend. Will connect to the @purplelinemd.bsky.social

Engineers think of traffic as one particular liquid. Sewage. You don't care how long it takes to get to its destination, but you do everything possible to make sure it doesn't back up. Sanitary engineering was a hot new science when traffic engineering started in the 1920s.

TACO. Trump Always Chickens Out.

"After nearly a decade as an attorney representing community associations, I entered city government as a zoning believer. I quickly lost my faith." From the outgoing director of Baltimore's zoning appeals board. www.baltimorebrew.com/2025/11/24/b...

Thx @cnn.com for telling Joy and Sam’s story! A great example how transit connects the community & can really impact people in so many ways. Really appreciate seeing our amazing @wmata.com staff get the attention they deserve. Pls pass this one along ❤️ www.cnn.com/2025/11/23/u...

TACO. Trump always chickens out.

Trump & the last guy he talked to! "It seems clear that Mamdani sought to appeal to Trump’s experience as a real estate developer by highlighting his own pro-density inclinations." www.nytimes.com/live/2025/11...

Mamdani's statement is an attack on civil liberties. "Sacred space" or not (a synagogue social hall isn't), extremist groups have a right to meet. By this logic, Code Pink (backs Chinese oppression of Uighurs) & PYM (backed Oct 7 massacre) shouldn't be allowed to meet. bsky.app/profile/crab...

28 of 28! All 28 Light Rail Vehicles have arrived in Maryland; a major milestone for the Purple Line. This vital connection will knit communities, ease commutes, promote public transit and link riders to 21 stations and key destinations across the corridor. #PurpleLineprogress

Vision Zero accomplishments for the year, in a county of 1 million. 7 new signals (some only blinking lights) 5.9 miles of new sidewalk 4 bikeways under construction 89 traffic lights retimed 189 "resident engagement events"

Spotted in the wild! A new nimby euphemism for keeping people out. As Baltimore City Council nears vote to legalize multi-family housing in all residential areas, opponents lament loss of "single-family values." www.thebanner.com/community/ho...

California's anti-nimby "builder's remedy" and the "pirate" builder who took on Beverly Hills first. Ultimate impact "not just units that are built by using it, but the ones built in fear of it." Great report by @conordougherty.bsky.social [gift link] www.nytimes.com/2025/11/20/b...

LOL

Big day for me. Walking to Metro, I saw rails being installed at the Bethesda Purple Line station. Test trains are already running at the other end of the line. I first testified for this project in 1989.

WaPo editorial board launches a disgusting car-brained attack on Seattle's new mayor Katie Wilson. "Who is Wilson? She does not own a car" It's so bad you need to read it, so a gift link: wapo.st/4r2peP3

"That would be an ugly change to our little corner of paradise" - People living on streets with mansions, minutes away from major employers. These people's reaction is sadly the so similar everywhere in Canada.

Important recent yimby legislation that I hadn't heard about. Nova Scotia passed a law in 2023 that empowers Halifax city government to alter any covenant that limits density or height more strictly than zoning ordinance. Done on application by property owner. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

#AlwaysUseCrosswalks so that, when a hit & run driver hits you, the police won't find you at fault.

When your goal is to keep outsiders out, an insider who wants them in is a traitor. Much worse than the developer attacking from outside. This phenomenon is a diagnostic sign that nimbyism is basically exclusionary, even when the asserted rationale is not.

@thenewjerseyer.bsky.social has unearthed a crazy nugget here, from an interview with incoming NJ governor Mikie Sherrill. She clearly says that she stopped talking about building new housing, even though she thinks it's a good idea, because most every voter she spoke to hated the idea!! (1/5)

Bernie Sanders suggested to Republicans that if they don't want insurance companies profiting off of health care subsidies he has an idea.

Great explanation of why real per-capita income statistics don't tell you whether people are better off economically than 50 years ago (the claim by @whstancil.bsky.social). With the effect of suburbanization on housing and transportation expenditures serving as prime examples.

You see Trump working the phones and realize White Housers are looking at this morning's emails and thinking, who cares abuot those nothingburgers we need to flip boebert so the bad stuff doesn't come out.

Epstein emails say ”dog that hasn’t barked is Trump.” “Of course he knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop.” www.nytimes.com/2025/11/12/u...

"Residential neighborhood" is Orwellian language. Car traffic is regularly kept out of "residential" streets lined with 1-family houses & forced onto streets with many more residents. Whenever you discuss this, point out that traffic is diverted from a less residential to a more residential street.

"Community engagement" in the hands of traffic engineers. Baltimore complete streets law requires installation of planned bike lanes when a street is repaved. City lacks staff to do community engagement for all repavings. So they just repave with no bike lane. www.thebanner.com/community/tr...

This reminds me of the disastrous pile-on on Al Franken. "Followers of public opinion" is what the few electeds he praises look like. Ro Khanna? Moulton? Yes, senate Dems have a bad surrender caucus. As far as I can tell, Schumer did well to keep it on board until the Obamacare premium hikes hit.

I wrote about state-level ADU reform and the differences between @strongtowns.org and YIMBYism. www.maxdubler.com/blog/2025/11...

Why can't Dems get TV coverage? See this great (for other findings) paper. TV news covers taxes on business 16 times less often than political ads discuss it. Nearly as bad for medicare, jobs & social security. Cable news covers stock market 12 X more than political ads, Broadcast news 8 X more.

people say Trump has really coarsened our politics, but pretty much everyone who interacts with him says “pardon me”.

The center of the Senate Democrats has moved a long way toward a fighting stance since March. The job now is to get the rest of the party there. Go after the 8 defectors & their co-thinkers in the House. I'm with Josh on this. talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-qui...

Call them: Jeanne Shaheen (202) 224-2841 Gary Peters (202) 224-6221 Jon Ossoff 202-224-3521 Mark Kelly (202) 224-2235 Peter Welch 202-224-4242 Tammy Baldwin (202) 224-5653 Elissa Slotkin 202-224-4822 John Fetterman (202) 224-4254 Catherine Cortez Masto (202) 224-3542 Angus King (202) 224-5344

Why can't Dems get TV coverage? See this great (for other findings) paper. TV news covers taxes on business 16 times less often than political ads discuss it. Nearly as bad for medicare, jobs & social security. Cable news covers stock market 12 X more than political ads, Broadcast news 8 X more.

Income statistics treat a long drive to work & health insurance premiums that pay for doctors' paperwork & functionaries who deny coverage as consumption. Americans are definitely paying for a lot of both, but neither is really voluntary & neither makes them feel richer.

If I'm reading this correctly, the arrivals rate at #DCA goes to 12 an hour — down from 24 an hour — at 530pm ET. That's 12 flights an hour at 530pm on a Friday night, one of the busiest travel days of the week.

The high point of my literary career came 61 years ago. It's been downhill ever since, but here at last it gets the respect it deserves... defector.com/wilbur-huckl...

Question: Has TACO Trump given up on killing NY's congestion pricing? I haven't heard anything about it in a while.

What a joke for Trumpies to pretend peace between Kazakhstan & Israel is their accomplishment. Story I heard in mid-1990s: Atomic energy ministers of Kazakhstan & Argentina met at an international conference. They found their only common language was Yiddish. www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_ent...

No. A more likely explanation of these results is that the people who say only 30% want climate action are right. When you try to do something, many of the 2/3 who said they'd pay no longer want to. Road diets. Parking. Every US city that passed a Vision Zero resolution.

Important piece by national-security conservative @maxboot.bsky.social rethinks Dick Cheney's legacy in the light of Donald Trump's authoritarianism. Would like to see a similar rethinking on the left in the light of Trump's destruction of USAID. www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...

Local journalism is not dead! From the list of "most read" articles on the Bangor Daily News website:

When you look at election returns, nimbyism is almost always a right-wing or elite centrist phenomenon. Left nimbyism functions basically as political cover for right nimbys. When left nimbys win elections, it's by uniting right nimbys with people voting left on other issues.

Re-upping my article from June, even more relevant today. How liberal Zionists, who constitute the broad center of American Jewry, should react to Mamdani. Don't abandon progressivism, but choose a progressivism based on economics-centered solidarity rather than charity. forward.com/opinion/7327...

This election was a stunning rebuke to the claim that voters choose based on vibes rather than issues.* *But it gave a lot of support to the idea that voters need to experience the issues, not just hear about them from the candidates.

Staying up late last night worked out much better than staying up late last Saturday.

Most sewer socialist line in Mamdani's speech - and one that says a lot about how he wants to govern: the promise to get rid of bloated bureaucracies.

"Progressive yimbys are firmly in charge" in Baltimore as mayor signs bills: No off-street parking required. Single-stair buildings up to 6 stories. Reduced setbacks. Still in process: Allowing 2- & 4-unit buildings in multifamily zones. www.thebanner.com/politics-pow...

This is a success of the yimby attack on 1-family zoning. Nimbys giving up on keeping housing out of commercial areas to use their power to protect the 1'family zones.

Truly classic line about Mamdani from the Republican Jewish Coalition: “I have two sons that work on Wall Street and I’m extremely concerned about their safety.” forward.com/fast-forward...