Mayor Mamdani has announced the Affordable & Efficient Code Reform task force, to convene later this year. The housing plan says that among other things, elevator and plumbing reform will be considered. www.nyc.gov/content/dam/... (pgs. 98-99)

Spending time in France and Switzerland, it’s clear that the “missing middle” in North America isn’t townhouses and duplexes. It’s mid-rises. Especially mid-rise neighbourhoods. Our denser urban fabric (Montreal, Chicago, etc.) is still mostly 2-3 storeys, not 4-8 like is so common here.

Good news from Trenton today: legislation making it easier to convert empty malls & office buildings into mixed-use communities — with at least 20% affordable housing required — just cleared a key Senate committee. Learn more from @njsenatedemocrats.bsky.social: www.njsendems.org/m/newsflash/...

Tiny elevators in Nice @stephenjacobsmith.com

Questions I have for Rich Lazer: - Can you double the parking permit fees for oversized vehicles, since they take up 2x the curb? - How could his approach to operational excellence and JFDI translate to other city depts, like L&I and Streets? - Does he want to run for Sheriff?

Hope to see all Philly urbanist Bsky folks there, once in a lifetime opportunity!

PPA director Rich Lazer is our guest for BPN’s policy lunch tomorrow open.substack.com/pub/buildphi...

SEPTA has acquired the cars with the 2-by-sideways seating arrangement www.inquirer.com/transportati...

A crane for a 3-story building in Philly @stephenjacobsmith.com

oh look at that www.pew.org/en/research-...

Just to make sure there won’t be enough new housing to keep even more from closing

Starting to dig into Philly Land Bank voting records and meeting packets with Claude Code to track LB projects. Here is a new BPN mini-site with the timeline for just one example project, showing why the process can take so darn long norrissquarettk.netlify.app

Crazy crazy story. Times of Israel reporter ( English language Israeli news site ) gets escalating death threats to change story that’s at center of big polymarket bet. www.timesofisrael.com/gamblers-try...

Also the Germantown Station development parcel mentioned in the article, that SEPTA wants to see happen, still isn't getting rezoned with the Mayor's bills! CM Bass has stalled it wwww.septa.org/initiatives/...

Some overlay districts are huge and explicitly named after the Councilmanic District, a blatant expression of prerogative that was only introduced in 2021 first to ban ADUs whyy.org/articles/to-...

Here is a 3D map of Center City Philadelphia--but no, it's not height! This is the number of unique zoning overlays applied to each lot, totaling up to 14 separate overlays on some lots! codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/philad...

I was able to create a Philly zoning overlay "skyline" out of this bsky.app/profile/bens...

Generally I’m not one of those “eliminate two laws for every one you pass” or “the tax code should fit on an index card” people. Modern society is complicated and laws will be too. But big city zoning is getting too complicated. A lot of it came from a YIMBY place, but we need to simplify the rules.

CM Young’s Hahnemann revenge bill would have blocked 92% of legitimate development projects *citywide* from 2010-2025, based on a review of city permitting and construction timelines from that period

I wrote about my white whale, the Neighborhood Commercial Overlay in Fishtown and Northern Liberties, which doubles the amount of time it takes to open a restaurant. The ZBA approves 97% of these cases, making it more like a toll booth than a gate

Eye-popping margins in the Pennsylvania special elections today: —Democrats won HD94 by 63 points. (Harris won it by 30 in 2024.) —Democrats won HD42 by 35 points. (Harris won it by 17 in 2024.) [The 2024 numbers are via the essential @the-downballot.com].

I personally know two separate people who just won neighborhood races By Applying. Both were relatively shocked

I wrote for @thephilacitizen.bsky.social about how uncompetitive the Philly committee person elections really are. Don’t be afraid to just go for it!

Trump: "I can do anything I want to do to them ... I'm allowed to destroy the country."

Running for a committee person seat in Philly, or thinking about it? I’ve been making some cool Philly CP election tools for 5th Square with Claude. Sign up on their CP interest form to get access docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

We gotta reform the PHC's exterior scope to permanant facade elements only

A thing that annoys me about the Axios newsletter is that the tone is consistently “I am one of the top experts on this thing I learned about five minutes ago.” Also that they have 280 sources in the White House but their only source on the left is Rep. Capitulate Middle (D).

Dude is quickly climbing the ranks of Most Dangerous Man Alive

Read @ninthhostage.bsky.social on last Friday’s Philadelphia Historical Commission meeting, where the Commission decided a designation case for a 1920’s movie theater in Frankford, among other things open.substack.com/pub/buildphi...

Example interurban/intercity cases will include: Fast, rapid electric service linking Chicago-Milwaukee-Madison; Chicago-Springfield-St. Louis; Chicago-Kalamazoo-Ann Arbor-Detroit; Philadelphia-Reading; Philadelphia-Bethlehem; NY-Scranton.

Our goals: - Create a positive vision of what investing in transit can deliver for Jersey, Philly and Chicagoland, delivering much faster commutes and much improved connectivity - Illustrate how it opens the door for modern interurban service that extend beyond the megalopolises to nearby cities

Very excited to say that the stars have aligned and NYU Marron/Transit Costs Project have landed a grant that will fund a second edition of Momentum, which will apply the high-throughput framework to major regional rail networks beyond the NY area. Our three big new cases: - NJT - SEPTA - METRA

This stat (below) really goes to show that 👏🏼traffic 👏🏼deaths 👏🏼are 👏🏼preventable 👏🏼 People who live in Philadelphia are now almost 3Xs more likely to be killed in traffic than those who live in NYC (where real progress has been made to Vision Zero goals) www.axios.com/local/philad...

Washington, DC's City Council is hearing its single-stair building now. You can find written testimony and a link to the Zoom feed here. The Department of Buildings' testimony is *very* positive. I'll be testifying at some point as well lims.dccouncil.gov/Hearings/hea...

After practicing in Chicago for 12 years (and in very urban settings in New Jersey before that), three things really strike me about Philadelphia. 1) I see many more people with bullets in them 2) I see many more pedestrians struck by cars 3) I see many more cyclists struck by cars

"Weiss is planning to tell her newsroom Tuesday that she intends to hire approximately 18 paid commentators and that she only wants top-flight performers committed to her approach to stick around. Weiss is also expected to make significant cuts to the newsroom." www.npr.org/2026/01/27/n...

Signs about the history of slavery in the U.S. and the 9 people George Washington enslaved are being removed right now at the President’s House Site in Philadelphia, across from Independence Hall, months after the Trump administration threatend to do so. How far we have not come in 250 years.

The United States has the fewest elevators in the rich world, with Canada only a bit ahead. We teamed up with @uytaelee.bsky.social of About Here Videos to investigate why, exactly, North America sucks at elevators.

I count 10 cities in 2025 that are on track to have the fewest murders since at least 1970. Newark is on pace to have the fewest murders since 1956 (though only have data through Oct this year) and San Francisco is on pace to have the fewest murders since 1942.

Philly should follow this rule and empower the Planning Commission to grant all needed special exceptions short of complete variances @jongeeting.bsky.social

This sheet is the kicker that explains it. The occupant load per staircase is so much higher in the typical DLC building

This study was funded by the legislature after advocacy by @moreneighbors.org, @net0builder.bsky.social, and my org. It's a bombshell finding, and it shows that small amounts of government funding for code research – this one cost just $225k, same as one mid-rise stairway! – yields big results.

They also compared the mid-rise single-stair building to a code-compliant low-rise single-stair building. They found slightly more risk, easily mitigated with smoke detectors in the corridor OR improved inspections. This is the finding they highlighted, and the direction they are pushing in.

Consultants contracted by Minnesota found that an eight-story single-stair building with 6,000 sq. ft. per floor (building 4) has dramatically lower fire risk than a same-height code-compliant two-stair building with a larger floor plate (building 1) www.dli.mn.gov/sites/defaul...

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

More residents, more workers, more tourists, according to local housing advocate @jongeeting.bsky.social.

YIMBY transit advocate and elected official running against one of southeast PA’s biggest SEPTA traitors from the budget right this year 👌

Pew's main findings: - Newer multifamily is safer than older multifamily - Newer multifamily is safer than newer single-family - Single-stair multifamily buildings are as safe as buildings with two stairwells www.lewis.ucla.edu/2025/12/03/1...

In this episode of UCLA Housing Voice, we talked with Alex Horowitz about Pew's important research — possibly the first of its kind in the U.S.? — evaluating fire safety outcomes for multifamily housing, measured as the risk of dying in a building fire. www.lewis.ucla.edu/2025/12/03/1...