The effect of Barcelona stopping tourism growth will be that prices will rise for touristic services (hotels, food, cruises, etc.), and they will just get richer tourists. They aren’t going to be more “cultural” or whatever nonsense they’re asking for, just richer. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/10/t...

It’s truly a masterpiece of a bill, at least when it comes to what the federal government can *actually do.*

Lithium Valley is an industrial development program planning for much higher-impact geothermal plants, mineral extraction and manufacturing. If we can't build these in a heavy industrial zone, where can we build them

It’s not progressive accept the status quo there.

It’s truly incredible how diverse of recreational opportunities we have literally within the city. 🥾🚵‍♂️🏃‍♂️ Hiking, mountain biking, trail running. 🛶 Kayaking, paddle boarding, canoeing. 🥏 An absurd number of frisbee golf courses. 🎿 Cross-country skiing.

This might be the most perfect summer forecast I’ve ever seen?

This is what Tree Action Seattle, Vanishing Seattle, and all the other insidious softball NIMBY organizations want to keep happening.

This is an excellent comparison. @spokanereimagined.org let’s do something like this for Yes for Buses!

Need to understand why the reliability of this system is treated like an afterthought when it’s far, far, far more heavily used than something like I-5 or I-90, where a big disruption would result in emergency-level response.

We absolutely must repeal and replace SEPA to ensure this type of sprawl isn’t easier than building modest apartment buildings in cities. A law that results in these outcomes is not worth keeping. Let’s fix it, #waleg.

It is important that people feel comfortable in public spaces if we want our communities to have vibrant social and economic experiences.

“Undue expectations?” Like what, that the service will be relatively free of major delays? That the rail projects voters approved will get built in a timely way? No normie thinks those expectations are undue. Because they are not.

Two things are true at the same time: ST has made immense improvement on service disruptions. And demand to use the system is so high that the current lack of redundancy is going to continue to cause problems.

Looks like the city is also planning some tiny roundabouts on the new greenways. Love me a tiny roundabout!

Looking through public plan docs and stumbled upon this. I think it might be the city's first installation of a diverter on a greenway (imo, greenways aren't greenways without diverters!). This is Adams and 16th, serving the Adams Greenway. These are concrete, Toronto-like barriers.

Is there any news on whether @sound-transit.bsky.social is expected to be back to normal in the morning? Feels weird not to communicate this so people can plan their commutes?

Imagine calling yourself a leftist and claiming new multifamily housing will cause gentrification in Palo fucking Alto

Frankly even that much wouldn’t be enough to compensate the public for their greed and misfeasance.

My friend is dead. A driver, through neglect, recklessness or malice, has killed Louisa. I’m beside myself with grief and filled with righteous anger at a city that has stalled and slow-walked safety improvements for all road users. Louisa should be here with us.

Of the many, many problems facing Sound Transit, one of the biggest is this lack of transparency and opacity. They’re doing a terrible job keeping the public updated on a problem that has totally disrupted regional transportation.

we’re never getting cheaper ram again are we

People are predictably very angry at me for expressing even a sliver of empathy for the guy. I’m sorry, but if membership your movement precludes that minimum level of humanity towards people who have done terrible things or made terrible decisions, please count me out of it.

I also don't think infrastructure maintenance is quite so central to the story as Chuck believes. Of course, it's a factor, but what's going to really wipe out these inner suburbs is the escalating YOY run up in vanilla services in a context of limited property tax growth. bsky.app/profile/cbgo...

Personally I really don’t like regulating FAR at all, as it’s essentially double-regulation if you also have things like height limits and setbacks.

We should only be so lucky

Sound Transit was doing a great job during the World Cup, and then they just… give up?

The 1% cap is a simple state law. It can be repealed at any time, or loosened to something like 3% + inflation. But no one is doing the hard work of convincing legislators, despite its absolute necessity to maintain public services.

It’s striking how different some of this is from 2018.

Lumen Field is officially older than the Kingdome was when it was demolished. If you think there isn’t a big argument coming soon in Washington over public financing of stadiums, you have another thing coming.

I’m sorry WHAT? What is WRONG with blue cities and states?!?!?!

This is crazy and should be repealed. America is too rich of a country to be able to afford on-site staff in small buildings. Labor is too expensive and America is safe enough to not need this. When something really goes wrong anyway in an apartment building, you need a plumber, not a "manager."

The latest one is this absolutely ridiculous “non-freeway” freeway project in Spokane Valley:

Inclusionary zoning is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how housing markets work.

The reason Platner has gotten roughly 10x the discussion of any of the panoply of rapists & sexual harassers in prominent positions on the right is that everyone - left, right, center, media, *everyone* - has internalized that conservatives just don't care and so there's no point talking about it.

Sitting next to someone on the bus who is literally FaceTiming his girlfriend during his commute. He’s also texting someone else simultaneously. It’s exactly as awkward and annoying as you’d imagine. We desperately need to root out this disgusting, antisocial behavior from the populace.

Would have been cool if the DNC had done a bunch of research about how people felt about switching candidates after a primary, and how much it contributed to the ‘24 loss. Also alternate methods of picking a successor that are more democratic. In case it ever came up again. Hypothetically.

🔥 🔥 🔥 Nate Powell is the ONLY candidate for Congress in eastern Washington who can defeat Mike Baumgartner in November. Please cast your primary ballot by August 4!

Urbanists need to do more to reckon with the fact that the updated PROWAG and evolving interpretations of ADA make it far more difficult to build the types of public spaces we say we want.

This is the right type of framework for allowing Waymo and other autonomous taxis in new places: require things like Lidar and data sharing. I hope #waleg does this in the next session.

So there’s a tension between some YIMBYs and some other urbanists focused on the value of beautiful cities where the YIMBYs want housing, no matter what it looks like, and the others want it to be beautiful. Clearly that tension is going nowhere tho because now we’re legislating ugly shit 🤷‍♀️

We live in an incredibly beautiful place. This is a five minute ride from my house! My wife bought me a 360 camera so expect me to be (even more) insufferable about active transportation infrastructure in Spokane

Slopulism will destroy everything we care about!

Exactly!

jfc Does no one look at economic data? Seniors in this country are disproportionately wealthy. Are some seniors in need of aid? Sure, but most should see their tax burdens increase, not decrease

It is absolutely unconscionable to argue that young people should further subsidize the wealthiest people in American society—seniors. If they truly have trouble paying, allow them to take out a lien against their property that gets repaid upon their death and its sale. Enough with the slopulism!

Not usually a DSA defender but the hand wringing here is pretty annoying and I have to assume the people doing so are not involved in any political advocacy organizations.

It truly has been a magical period for the PNW.

The way we regulate building design is absolutely gonna be one of those things we look back on with morbid awe and fascination.

Planners and very bad architects come up with the worst rules that result in ugly buildings

"If you’re worried about population collapse, then I have two solutions for you: attract many more immigrants, and figure out how to loosen the patriarchal bargain’s grip on the masculine imagination." publiccomment.blog/p/if-you-wan...