deafening silence from Mayor Mamdani on how he is going to lower the cost of living in San Francisco

Is anyone in Chicago building light wood frame 2-6 flats? @jmings.bsky.social

Strong Towns Chicago deployed my location crash report dashboard 🤝 @strongtownschicago.bsky.social Use this to generate crash reports for intersections, corridors, or your own ward. Best experienced on desktop 🗺️ www.strongtownschicago.org/chicago-cras...

Seattle basically did RM-5, denser than four-flats, citywide

This looks like the most aggressive upzoning I’ve seen in a US city

New on the blog! A long-overdue look at the new Chicago 'L' diagram.

I somehow missed this great piece from earlier this year. Also interesting to see Seattle and Atlanta as standouts for building in already-dense areas. agglomerations.substack.com/p/not-just-s...

There’s a narrative that it’s economically much harder to densify already-developed urban areas, so YIMBYism won’t do much. This has some truth, but it can’t explain why the *densest* urban tracts have added substantially more housing than inner-ring suburbs since 2014

This is incredible

I take photos of sidewalks in every city I visit. I have never — EVER — seen such tortured intersections like this anywhere else but LA

New from me! Chicago has far too many bus stops to provide efficient service for its riders—nearly twice the national standard. I reimagined what Chicago's bus network could do to make it look like its peers. citythatworks.substack.com/p/a-plan-for...

One big takeaway from Mamdani bringing YIMBYs into his transition is that advocates can often gain a lot of power by 1.) having useful answers to questions and accurate information 2.) being reasonably polite and pleasant to elected officials 3.) understanding the actual mechanics of government

Impact for Equity's Mallory Verez and @danielkayhertz.bsky.social have an op-ed published in yesterday's @crainschicago.bsky.social about our new study on what Illinois can learn from other states that have implemented property tax sale reform! www.chicagobusiness.com/opinion/what...

From the right-wing Manhattan Institute's focus group of Gen Z conservatives -- just jaw-dropping stuff. We have a very sick society. www.city-journal.org/article/manh...

Someone requested this alternate graphic: total tax, by year built, for all residential structures in Berkeley. In terms of local property/parcel tax yield, the five years from 2020-2024 amount to more revenue than all the buildings built during the thirty years 1970-1999.

5945 West Midway Park

Replacing the rhetorical aesthetics of the 2010 dirtbag left with 2020s nice young man Zohran left would be a major improvement

Mayor's Office is sliding into people's DMs – not that there's anything wrong with that! – w/ this claim that Johnson is *not* planning to defund Chicago's traffic safety infrastructure budget by 70% to fund CFD back pay & CPD settlements. 🤔 Background: chi.streetsblog.org/2025/12/10/d...

This CTA bus service announcement is amazing

We need laws to make federal agents personally liable for this type of behavior. Whoever did this should be sued into poverty by this kid's parents.

Extraordinary courage from Ahmed al Ahmed, a Muslim, 43-year-old father of two, who bravely risked his life to save his neighbors celebrating Hanukkah. Praying for his full & speedy recovery. And so deeply inspired by his example.

Hello! Did you know that IL is the only state in the country to not even try to be in compliance with a 2023 Supreme Court ruling that says the government can't take $100,000 in home equity over a $1,500 tax debt? impactforequity.org/report/lieni...

The south lakefront is nearly back at its pre-Plan for Transformation population, although much of that is a result of market-driven redevelopment

Great to see Bronzeville keep turning empty lots into 3-flats. ACS data is only through 2023, but I wouldn't be surprised to hear total population along the south lakefront neighborhoods is back at post-2000s highs by now.

the thing is there really is a epochal tech revolution happening, it’s called renewables and green industry

This is a major attack on anti-discrimination enforcement, given the already immense financial and legal difficulties of proving discrimination in single cases. Another blatant effort to return to a pre-Civil Rights economy. www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

Anyone have a link to a backstory to why apartments buildings in Chicago were required to contract for private trash removal vs. use the city? And, related, what would the net effects of adding all those units back to city routes? (My guess is fewer trucks/less pollution? maybe it covers cost?)

Three flat construction in Bronzeville continues to go brrr chicagoyimby.com/2025/12/trif...

I can’t emphasize enough how much you need to watch this until the end

Consequently, I've updated the South Side Coffee Shops map that I maintain. It's not all bad news, though: some recent additions to the map include Tawney's Coffee in Brighton Park and Southside Market & Cafe in Chatham.

For body text, what is the move? Is there a sans serif way to do aesthetic maximalism where readability matters?

Finally got around to reading this—it's a great overview of how zoning & (more importantly) parking requirements led to some typical apartment building types in Chicago over the years

…biased towards the right, why the fuck would the left concede it? If I have to live with the US Senate and a hardline interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, conservatives should have to live with the most straightforward interpretation of the 14th Amendment.

The alternate universe where Ashland BRT (or event LRT!) is deployed and successful and leads to a whole network buildout would have been great, too bad we're not a dense, transit-oriented city like (checks notes) Minneapolis

Early 2029 will be like a post-conflict society starting a campaign of de-Trumpification.

Love the whistles, jeers and horns honking in the background. There should be a similar crowd surrounding every ICE/CBP action.

Not that anyone cares about buses, but it speaks volumes that we’d rather divert buses off of what should be our marquee dedicated bus facility through the heart of the Loop instead of finally figuring out what to do about Christkindlmarket crowding

Between this and Metra going to Rockford, we're reinventing interurbans from first principles

Want to board a Metra train in Evanston headed for Milwaukee? You might be able to in a few years... www.cbs58.com/news/better-...

losing my mind at the 25% of GOP voters who think most Italian Americans are "more loyal to a foreign country than to the United States."

there are of course many examples of political constituencies that have in fact killed scores of children (en route to some other evil goal), but I can't offhand think of any historical examples of a political constituency organized for that specific purpose

This car was going 100 mph. That shouldn't be possible on a (sub)urban street. Every other commonly used consumer product has basic safeguards: you can't accidentally set your toaster to 2,000°F. Speed limiters in all cars now!

Official data is in this week, and US solar continues to grow rapidly, with generation up 30% compared to last year!

The annual property tax bill on this parking garage went down $8,000 Wrong direction

I love boring but meaningful infrastructure upgrades

Day 313. Chicago this morning 🍁 #4yearslongproject #chicago #chicagoskyline

A really welcome reinvention of a fairly standard five story infill apartment building from a newish local architecture firm, Org chicagoyimby.com/2024/10/plan...

From Frederick Douglass's 1867 "Composite Nation" speech, a defense of Chinese migration to the United States at a time when anti-Chinese sentiment was intensifying. teachingamericanhistory.org/document/our...

In 1657, Jin Shengtan 金聖嘆 broke off from his commentary on 'The Romance of the Western Chamber' to list "33 Nice Things" 不亦快哉三十三則. It's one of the most likable things I know of in any language. I translated it to cheer myself up a while ago, if anyone could use it. www.burninghou.se/p/whats-good

What happens when you downzone? Our new open-access research paper in @findingspress.org investigates effects of decades of downzoning in Chicago. Findings: —Downzoned areas added 1/7th of the new units as comparable non-downzoned areas; —Downzoned areas became more white & were more expensive.