Lifting zoning restrictions may not help housing affordability as much as some hope. But if we must bring some change to established neighborhoods, let’s at least do it with human scale and respect for the things people love about their communities. My latest: bit.ly/4tr2eKE

In our enthusiasm for housing and increased density, advocates can overlook the opportunities and benefits of human-scale development. Our images often suggest that this scale represents what we do; my new essay argues that we should more often practice what we preach. bit.ly/4tr2eKE

Wow! Congratulations to @smartgrowthusa.bsky.social for hiring @bethosborne.bsky.social as its new president and CEO. What a wonderful choice! Godspeed, Beth! www.smartgrowthamerica.org/knowledge-hu...

Apparently, no one seems particularly bothered, but for the past few days, Trump has been talking repeatedly about being a dictator. If Americans don’t want that, the window to stop him is closing quickly.

This is just so self-defeating for our country. Creating complete unpredictability for an infant industry Killing an infant in its cradle…really people?? www.nytimes.com/2025/08/22/c...

Looking at some of the replies to this post, it's notable how different the approach is in cycling+walking-friendly countries like the Netherlands + Sweden to that in most countries that face these weather conditions.

JFC what are we even doing? This neighborhood park is treeless and desolate so it can be a parking lot once a year?

As our kids go #BackToSchool, never forget that we ARE the traffic that we’re afraid of. If more kids walked, biked or rode transit to school, it would erase a massive number of car trips each day, and our kids would be safer, healthier and better at school. HT Ian Lockwood. Spread the word.

Apparently getting disaster aid has become a privilege in the US

This is an important piece of evidence. US drivers need to slow TF down, especially on streets and roads where people live:

It was awesome collaborating with @tomflood.bsky.social on this project. So cool to see this up!

White sands New Mexico

NEW: For years, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has pushed discredited theories linking vaccines to autism. Now, scientists studying the condition fear he has preconceived notions that will harm the field and taint new funding for research. propub.li/41JYl7o

This suggests that not just personal preferences, but the “built environment” (i.e. the layout and planning of a city), plays a considerable role in the walking habits of a given individual. #MobilityIsEquity www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adve...

The Trump administration is intent on destroying U.S. higher education, which has for more than half a century been a beacon to the world.

New study: 60% of the world’s land area is in a precarious state, putting at risk the ability of the plant world to acquire enough energy through photosynthesis to maintain the material flows of carbon, water and nitrogen that support the ecosystems. www.pik-potsdam.de/en/news/late...

This, too, is America:

Terrible public transit forces people into car ownership whether they can afford it or not. Owning a car costs $16,000 a year of which $3-4,000 is insurance. Now hundreds of Ottawa drivers are citing the high cost of living as reason for not renewing their insurance. www.ctvnews.ca/ottawa/artic...

So sad and, frankly, outrageous that someone with these violations on his record is allowed to drive:

23.1% of principle residences in Paris are social housing. Keeping homes affordable for everyone that works here is what makes a city great. Here is a newly renovated project near my apartment. #paris #15minutecity #urbanism #housing #socialhousing www.apur.org/en/housing-d...

If it fits, I sits. If drivers have such a hard time understanding that the sidewalk can’t be parked on, maybe we need to remove more driveways that intersect sidewalks. This driver’s choice pushes pedestrians into one of the city’s highest injury streets (Nicollet).

“Walkable cities allow you to access more amenities on foot for daily life, like going to school or work, buying ingredients for dinner…But that's not available to everyone, given many cities and suburbs in Canada and the U.S. have been designed to emphasize transport by car, urban planners say.”

So agree with this! The kind on the right -- there are a zillion in Seattle -- look like they were designed by committee, or rather, by a group of subcommittees that only fitfully communicated with one another.

Remember all of the “food prices are too high” social media posts from 2024? Grocery price inflation is higher now than it was then

Starter condos are starter homes. Period. Why incentivize starter homes that are single family when they’re much more expensive than condos? Let the market build what people can actually afford. I’m glad this conversation is evolving in Utah.

What's it called when big corporations & an authoritarian government start effectively merging? Someone should come up with a word for it.

We expect to travel too quickly and are required to travel too great of distances in too short a time. The entire system of travel expectation, work requirements, and personal demand for speed is a problem that is killing more and more of us. When does this become an unignorable problem?

Right turn on red doesn't belong in busy sections of cities, and possibly in cities at all. Well-intentioned but unfortunate policy from the 1970s:

We love a candidate who makes public transit the framing of his campaign messaging. Literally. Look at how this video opens up.

Well done. Several good examples of human-scaled urbanism that can improve communities:

🧔🏿‍♂️I can't believe that Trump would deploy over 1,000 national guard troops to NYC to harass Black people, despite historically low and dropping crime! This is just fascism and a show of force designed to intimidate! 👩🏼Um... don't you mean DC? And it's only 800 soldiers? 🧔🏿‍♂️No, it was 1,000 and NYC.🤡

I’m very afraid that people are going to start dying of eminently preventable causes and even from starvation in the U.S., very soon.

Senator Jim Banks (R) isn’t sorry he told a fired federal worker “he probably deserved it”. He went on to say the worker was “complaining about losing a left-wing woke job in the federal government that should have never been a job to begin with”. The job was helping people with disabilities.

you know what the interior of affordable housing looks like in switzerland? it looks better than market rate housing in the US. espazium.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/files/styles...

Big news: the Senate parliamentarian has ruled that Trump's EPA *can not* revoke California's waiver under the Clean Air Act. Now we'll see whether the GOP gives a shit what the parliamentarian says.

Seriously, don’t ever tell me “conservatives” are good with the economy again. There’s been a ton of evidence for a long time that it’s obviously not true, enough that people who’ve claimed that at any point should be embarrassed — but it’s so horribly clear now that the claim should make you angry.

Forest soil carbon stock decreases for up to 30 years, with up to 23%, following clear-cutting, according to a major study from the Nordic countries and Canada. @ninanatureresearch.bsky.social @nibiolandskap.bsky.social @luke.fi @cjohannesson.bsky.social www.nina.no/english/Abou...

If “capitalists” were acting even close to rationally, they would be taking this incredibly seriously.

People who have principles and a moral core do not have to convene a fucking committee every time a political issue arises. They know what they believe and they fight for it. That -- the value of decisiveness, of knowing who you are -- never shows up in polls, so Dems are blind to it.

What do children need to walk and wheel safely in their neighbourhoods? Footpaths Safe places to cross Cycle paths Slow traffic Take part in Brake's Kids Walk on 11 June and join thousands of school children marching for their right to safe spaces brake.org.uk/kidswalk

Hey Vespa-rider today, and all Vespa/scooter riders in general, y’know you have to follow the rules of the road too, right? Stop signs are not a suggestion, not only did you nearly cause a vehicle accident with me but you almost hit a pedestrian crossing the opposite street.

Now THIS is the way to go! Bravo to the Old Dominion. ❤️

It has been several years since I’ve visited Canada, but three things this nearly full time pedestrian loves don’t seem to have changed: 1. People don’t gun it through yellow lights, 2. Red lights actually mean stop, and 3. Drivers yield to pedestrians in the crosswalk. ❤️🍁

From 2010 to 2016 (latest data I have ), NIH research contributed to EVERY drug approved by the FDA

We’re facing a plague of anti-science stupidity.

If this is good enough for Wales, it's good enough for the US. Let's slow the F down and save lives! Change the limit, strengthen enforcement, & fix bad road design that encourages speeding:

Truer words were never spoken.