@westnorth.com
Card-carrying urbanist since 1998; housing developer, author, museum docent, board member, single-issue #climate voter. Opine solely for myself. Ex-CHI, BOS, RDU 🚄🚋🚴♂️🌇🏗️🚰🏳️🌈 Words @ggwash.org @citybuilder.bsky.social
Yes, "the PE playbook" just systematized what's always happened to declining businesses -- e.g., streetcars or railroads in the mid-20th century
"I guess" he's admitting that...
This census data is for me the secret decoder ring of so much of what’s been going in the US in the last 20 years.
Downthread Kevin gave this context: “In 2006 and after, new home construction collapsed, and that's what moved it far from trend.”
"after NPR's initial story, the Justice Department said it was determining if records had been mistakenly tagged as duplicates" -- it just happens that in this "duplicate" 0.0017% of the original file set was...
No, we don't!
bsky.app/profile/muha...
Reminds me of the (Seattle-relevant!) tug of war over bike helmet laws. Trauma docs see the numerator (head injuries), public health scientists see the denominator (population activity levels).
FIFA Peace Prize material right here
James Talarico, who just received the Democratic nomination for US Senate from Texas, was the lead sponsor of last session's successful single stair bill in the Texas House.
The site is... on the Des Plaines River, which is mostly treated sewage. Behind a landfill and the UP railyard.
$2B in property tax revenue over 30 years.
sad news: nermal has been killed by an iranian drone attack on abu dhabi. an innocent victim of a senseless war
Post-2020, some regional trains have switched from MET to NBK. A win for TOD over P&R
MDOT's HQ is next to BWI station; I imagine that influences their thinking.
(Fun MARC bike trip: use the ped bridge from the station to their office as the starting point for a ride through Patapsco Valley to Ellicott City.)
NCR was built as the P&R stop for suburban MD, but in the intervening 50 years MD has substantially improved BWI's infrastructure for that purpose.
Mr. Eliason, who advocates allowing single-stair construction for small multifamily buildings as a solution to the housing crisis, said he learned how common the design was outside the United States while working in Germany in 2019. After seeing an 11-story tower his firm at the time had designed, Mr. Eliason recalled, he turned to his boss and said: "Something is wrong here. Where's your other stair?" "He's looking at me, and said: 'What are you talking about? If there was another stair, there wouldn't be any room for the homes'"
Single-stair gets the New York Times treatment. @holz-bau.bsky.social reminds us why they call the last line the kicker: www.nytimes.com/2026/03/04/b... (gift link)
“It is difficult to imagine more arbitrary and capricious decisionmaking than that at issue here.”
São Paulo figured out mass homeownership. The answer? Pre-sale reform.
Speaking at SPUR on March 10 about how California can learn from Brazil's and the rest of the world's condominium laws. 🏗️
spur.org/events/2026-03-10/homeownership-bottleneck-why-california-needs-functional-presale-system
Congestion charges have been enacted in quite small cities in the UK, notably Durham (population 50,000) and Oxford (population 165,000). The assumption that congestion charges are only for cities on a New York / San Francisco / Philadelphia scale is not necessarily correct.
A man who has never learned that actions have consequences should never be allowed to start a war.
"These are not accidents, they are results." Exactly this.
bsky.app/profile/book...
Spirit of Queensland RailBed
www.queenslandrailtravel.com.au/railexperien...
First on an HSR, I think?
Norway's PlusNight (about halfway down the page)
rail-away.com/2024/11/02/o...
Yeah, adjusting business hours is generally how people adapt, e.g., Spanish dinnertime
www.snopes.com/fact-check/s...
Ah, OK! None of the articles mentioned the legislature at all. (And us Yanks are rather focused on executive overreach right now.)
Is this a unilateral declaration by the premier? Seems like a lot of authority.
A problem for everyone else, because interrupted medication use allows HIV to develop drug resistance.
(This would've been less of a problem had vaccine research continued, but alas that got cut, too!)
From the last Gilded Age to the present one, elite disinterest remains one of the greatest barriers to great and inclusive public transit. This 1929 ad makes the same argument we must make today. 1/
Is this separate from DriveEasy? That's been a pain -- every time I take the train, I need to go back and tell it that no, I did not take 15 separate driving 3-mile trips atop the Northeast Corridor, and it's OK that I used my phone
Forced Car Dependence in 2 Seconds
