wonder if mamdani tried to single stair pill him single stair, folks. you’re hearing it more and more. single stair. it’s a beautiful term. makes wonderful homes - and we love a lot of beautiful, affordable homes. i think i probably just coined it. i’m not sure. but you’re hearing it more and more.

Very curious to see what his running game looks like going forward. It seems like even modest adjustments from opposing pitchers/defenses could have shut down his base-stealing pretty easily, but they just didn't ever do it for some reason.

I would like to believe MTG's recent turn against Trump was motivated by cynical calculation to advance her political career, because then we could expect others Rs similarly situated to reach similar conclusions. Alas, I suspect she's just an idiosyncratic conspiracist following her muse.

It's wild that the city in the US making the most significant investments in public transit expansion is also the city with the deepest, most unwaivering commitment to the principle that as few people as possible should be allowed to leave near transit stops.

Never has that Norm McDonald "I know this may seem harsh" meme been more apt

The answer to the question "Can you see a large body of water when you look out the window?" is a strikingly effective predictor of voting behavior in Seattle.

Something like this was inevitable, and I'm sure there's more to come, but I figured it'd be a fringe-major leaguer journeyman. Clase hadn't made big money yet but it's not hard to imagine him getting an 80-100 million dollar contract in the next few years.

This article suggests fare-free transit is "normal" in Europe; it's far more common in the US. Europe: Tallinn, Luxembourg, Dunkirk, Komarno (17th largest city in Slovakia) US: Kansas City, Lawrence, Albuquerque, Chapel Hill, Alexandria, Worchester, Missoula, dozens of smaller systems.

I'll do a brief thread about this in the next few days, but I just noticed my contribution to the Oxford Handbook of Republicanism, on the place of Public Administration in Republican theory, has gone live. Happy to send a PDF to interested parties w/o access. academic.oup.com/edited-volum...

Ventured out into the wilds of East Dayton this afternoon to try Taqueria La Cuchilla. Well worth it; cachete (torta) and al pastor (taco) both exceptional. The creamy/spicy avocado sauce they give you is something I had no idea how much I needed in my life.

Happy Middle Housing Day in Berkeley. As of today, multifamily housing up to 3 stories at 70 units per acre is byright and ministerial on all Berkeley lots in the flatlands and foothills for the first time in history, stretching from Kensington to Oakland.

Apparently, it's national cat day. Here's Willow and Nova, stealing my chair just seconds after I made the mistake of getting up.

Pleased to see DSA's better angels prevail on a very important vote. If you're voting for Mamdani and want his mayoral term to be successful on his own terms, passing these propositions is not optional.

This is revealing. Fryer is, for all intents and purposes, a Harrell campaign operative. He's given this prime real estate for an opinion piece a week before the election, and the number of specific, positive Harrell accomplishments he chooses to identify and promote in the piece is zero.

An early memory of mine is asking my parents to explain the (utterly deranged) Bircher political messages on this sign as a kid. It gives me a small amount of pleasure to learn it is now owned by the Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis reservation.

People kvetch about the chaos-inducing serial comma, but you can also do a lot with a colon! Beware, biographers!!

Is there any remotely plausible path toward some sort of sanction or punishment for Adrienne Adams, or whoever whoever else is directly behind these obviously illegal mailers?

Good. Pujols deserves better.

Regardless of whether this guy gets a windfall by selling, "people who value not living near apartments more than they value being in the walkshed of a major transit stop moving out of that walkshed" seems like a highly desirable bit of Tiebout sorting.

Harrell's campaign is leaning hard on the "experience managing large, complex organizations" argument. And yet here's a story where SDOT ultimately follows its own policies and does the right thing, but *in spite of* Harrell's leadership, thanks to pressure from his opponent's activist organization.

Quite the impressive leader Harrell picked for SPD. If your internal promotions cannot hope to withstand an article in local indie media factually recounting the incidents in the promoted individual's disciplinary file, maybe that promotion isn't the right call? publicola.com/2025/10/09/r...

Rough baseball day for us upper left corner folk, but a nice silver lining. Happy "Yankees Elimination Day" to all who celebrate.

Rumor is that Gavin Newsom is wavering on housing and might veto SB 79. If you live in California, please reach out to the governor’s office today: cayimby.org/call-sb-79/

Tip for others returning to blue books: The key to grading a big pile of hand-written exams w/o losing your mind is to identify the ones with the worst handwriting and grade them first. Then you're "grading downhill." I am amazed at how effective this simple bit of psychological self-manipulation is

Adam Bonica leans into comparative trends to argue that anti-corruption is a strong campaign strategy for Democrats. This leaves me conflicted. data4democracy.substack.com/p/the-democr...

Happy Astros elimination day to all who celebrate.

The "pretend my conservative policy preference (no new housing) is actually progressive by making sure the poison pills sound leftish" gambit is rarely quite so transparent and nakedly cynical.

For any scholars of human rights or related topics: the Human Rights Center here at Dayton is having its biannual conference in April, and proposals are due at the end of the month. Consider submitting! If you come, remind me of this post and I'll buy you a beer. udayton.edu/blogs/udhuma...

I know this is all bad-faith and pretextual, but the fact that these NIMBYs think this might work as a pretext reveals a incredibly grim, dark worldview.

Another flag there's something off about this model: The AL are collectively slight favorites. Perhaps I've drunk from the CW well too deeply but that seems obviously wrong to me. Gambling community is at AL +120, NL -140

I don't know what to make of the degree to which the fangraphs model is so bullish on the Mariners. Beyond the WS question, 60/40 to win the division when the H2H games are in Houston?

seattle - CM rivera's amendment 102 is a poison pill that does not protect tree canopy, and will curtail housing in wealth neighborhoods this will push more development into areas that don't have trees - increasing exposure to heat islands please sign & boost actionnetwork.org/letters/amen...

Very interesting to see this in Berkeleyside, which in my experience rarely deviates much from the standard left-NIMBY songbook. And yet here they are, plainly and unequivocally debunking a core tenet of left-NIMBY theology. I wonder if this is part of a larger shift, or just a one-off.

Yikes – Crain’s is reporting that the Board of Elections “appears likely” to throw out the pro-housing land use ballot measures. These could be transformational for the city and disrupt member deference and Council NIMBYism, you’ve got to light up the BoE’s phones on Monday morning!

If my back-of-the-envelope math is correct here, this data suggests that as of 2023, somewhere in the ballpark of 36-38% of renter households in Seattle are car-free. (Something to keep in mind when NIMBYs insist all should be forced to buy off-street parking) www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news...

So this seems like pretty obvious BS from Mynorthwest; I can find evidence of only 3 debate-like events (tonight Haller Lake CC, 10/3 KINGTV/ST, 10/8 SeattleU). 20 debates in ~60 days is wildly implausible. How does this happen? Some AI-story generator gone wrong? mynorthwest.com/mynorthwest-...

They think they can get away with lying about the affordability of the 1M+ single family homes because such homes kind of seem "affordable" in spirit--old, unremarkable, often not well kept-up. This is all the more reason to allow them to be torn down and replaced with more/better/cheaper homes.

See, I think that would be a terribly annoying power to have, and the expectation to use it would be obnoxious and distracting. Relatedly, I think that this power coming with the job of city council member will lead to much worse people being interested in and seeking the job.

Among the many reasons IZ subsidy for middle income is a terrible idea is the incredibly perverse incentives it creates for politicians. Blue cities are full of politicians who have way too many reasons to want market rate housing to be unaffordable.

Everyone is gawking in horror at this clip and rightly so, but what I think is perhaps even more horrifying in the larger interview is her understanding of her job. She makes very clear she does not see herself as a legislator, but the lord of a fiefdom micromanaging every project in her district.

Cheat sheet for any pro-housing people in Seattle, D6 in particular. Let's try and push Strauss into doing the right thing. docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Cars really do a number on people's ability to think clearly about freedom.

One of the several downsides of districted city councils--sooner or later, politicians eventually figure out they find the role of "lord of fiefdom" easier and more satisfying than "legislator" www.theurbanist.org/2025/07/21/s...

Four years ago the same thing happened with that YIMBY architect (forgot name) who was running for mayor. It's an interesting phenomenon; in both cases some voters were willing to be expressive/"vote their heart" with their vouchers, but reverted to "best viable candidate" w actual vote.

I had the chance to read a draft and see her present this earlier this year. Fantastic paper, highly recommended. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

God dammit. I was just starting to buy the hype about Lurie. San Francisco politics remains cursed as ever.

So apparently CM Strauss is asking for feedback about neighborhood center expansions in the comprehensive plan. This kind of thing typically puts a finger on the NIMBY side of the scale, but he's doing it, so let's make sure this is circulated to pro-housing people in D6.

Seattle comp plan politics is showing why it's so idiotic to frame the abundance debate as just another stale round of centrists vs progressives. Here we have an effort to remove a dumb, self-defeating bit of everything-bagelism, Abundance 101 stuff, from the only progressive on the council.

Cuomo should go back to having Chat-GPT write his housing platform.

I'm not an electoral strategist, but it seems to me there might be some risks and/or downsides to making a promise to evict 5-10% of city residents from their apartments central to your campaign.